PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

ALIENS (NATURALIZATION)

Address for Return
showing (1) Particulars of all Aliens to whom Certificates of Naturalization have been issued and whose Oaths of Allegiance have, during the year ended 31st December, 1943, been registered at the Home Office; (2) Information as to any Aliens who have, during the same period, obtained Acts of Naturalization from the Legislature; and (3) Particulars of cases in which certificates of Naturalization have been revoked during the same period (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 108 of Session 1943–44)."—[Mr. Peake.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

Mines Ballot (Exemptions)

Major C. S. Taylor: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider exempting from the mines ballot those who wish to volunteer for service in the commandos, parachute battalions or as glider pilots.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): No, Sir. As I indicated in the course of a reply to my right hon. Friend on 25th May, I am not prepared to extend the present list of exceptions. Moreover, I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War that it would not be practicable to earmark volunteers for these duties at the pre-enlistment stage, as the men are not selected until after they have received preliminary training in the Army, and have been specially tested.

Major Taylor: Could my right hon. Friend say why it is that fighter pilots in the Air Force are exempted? Surely they have to be specially selected and have to go through a period of training in the same way.

Mr. Bevin: I am afraid that I cannot answer that question; but I must emphasise that I cannot change this method of exemption at this late stage of the war.

Sir Granville Gibson: Are there many of these boys refusing to go to the mines now?

Mr. Bevin: No.

Dismissed Employees (Appeal)

Mr. Bowles: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will amend the clause in the Essential Work Order so that employees dismissed for alleged misconduct should be brought before the members of the Joint Production Committee for a definite decision, along the lines resolved recently at a meeting of the shop stewards committee of Messrs. Riley (Coventry), Limited, a copy of which has been sent him by the hon. Member for Nuneaton.

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir. Under the Essential Work Order a worker dismissed for serious misconduct has the right of appeal to a local appeal board consisting of a representative of employers, a representative of workers and an independent chairman. The facts do not warrant the implication in the communication sent to me, that this procedure is being used in favour of the employers. It is an agreed procedure and I see no reason for making any change.

Mr. Bowles: Does my right hon. Friend remember that for some two or three months now, he and I have been in correspondence about another case concerning a motor works, where the same kind of feeling existed? May I also ask my right hon. Friend whether he will make inquiries into the feelings of the workers in the Coventry area about this matter?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir, but when a man wins he never complains. When he happens to lose, he does complain.

Mr. Bowles: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware of the case, particulars of which I sent him, in which the man concerned won twice, and in which the right hon. Gentleman and his National Service officer refused to make the employer carry out even the appeal board's recommendation?

Mr. Bevin: There may have been good reasons for it.

Works Relations Centres

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Supply if he will give particulars of the work being done by works relations centres, the number formed, objects and success attained.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Peat): As the answer is rather long I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

There are seven works relations centres—in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester, Nottingham and Cardiff. They have been established and are administered by the Ministry of Supply acting on behalf, and with the cooperation, of all the Production Departments and the Ministry of Information. The centres are in the charge of the regional works relations officers of the Ministry of Supply; but general control is exercised by the appropriate regional industrial publicity committee, on which all the Departments concerned, as well as local employers and trade unions are represented. The object of the centres is to encourage the wider adoption of the works relations system, whereby industrial workers are provided with a regular flow of information about the work on which they are employed, its importance in the chain of production, and the purposes for which the products of industry are used in the theatres of war or other spheres of essential national activity. The centres display examples of the various means of disseminating such information within industrial establishments, e.g., posters, films, production charts, factory exhibitions, action photographs and wall newspapers; and they provide guidance to managements as to the most effective way in which these and other methods (such as weapon demonstrations and talks by members of the fighting Services) can help to maintain output, explain production changes, reduce avoidable absenteeism and accidents, check waste of materials and fuel, and generally promote industrial efficiency. The centres are in the main advisory and do not modify in any way the direct responsibility of each Supply Department for the issue of publicity appropriate to factories engaged on its contracts. There is an increasing demand from factories for

the service of advice and assistance available at the centres.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND GRANTS

Mr. Manningham-Buller: asked the Minister of Pensions the number of widows whose husbands received marriage allowance from the War Office who have been refused a pension.

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): If, as I assume, my hon. Friend has in mind cases in which death is accepted as having been due to war service, the position to which he refers could only arise if the husband had been an officer in receipt of marriage allowance on the ground that he was providing for his wife's maintenance, yet in fact had not been doing so. I regret that the records of my Department do not enable me to distinguish these cases but they must be very few.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: asked the Minister of Pensions the number of cases in which a pension has been refused to a widow on the ground that during her husband's life she had not obtained a maintenance or separation order against him.

Sir W. Womersley: Pension is refused on the ground of separation only where no loss of support has occurred, namely in cases in which the husband was not contributing to a reasonable extent to his wife's support, or she was not entitled to receive payment under a maintenance or separation order, or she had not taken reasonable steps to obtain payment under such an order. It is not possible, without a disproportionate expenditure of labour, to state the number of cases in which pension has been refused on these grounds for the whole period of the war, but for the three months ended the 1st July, 1944, it was 60.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Is it not the case that, under the new reconciliation procedure, in the Army Council Instruction, a lot of wives who have been deserted by their husbands delay taking police court proceedings, and so lose their right to pension? Will he not consider amending the Regulations so that wives, whose husbands were under a legal liability to maintain them, should receive widows' pensions?

Sir W. Womersley: I am always prepared to reconsider any matter where I think it would be of advantage to the persons applying for pension.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: In view of the usual nature of this reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Pensions whether the provisions of the schemes administered by him for the benefit of Service personnel, covers volunteers in voluntary organisations, serving for the benefit of the Services in all theatres of war.

Sir W. Womersley: No, Sir. The position is that personnel of voluntary organisations working for and with His Majesty's Forces in all theatres of war are covered by the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme in respect of war injuries, provided that they are persons ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. The question of cover against injuries, etc., which are not war injuries is one for the organisation concerned.

Miss Ward: Would anyone contracting a disease such as typhus come under the scheme?

Sir W. Womersley: It all depends upon the definition of war injury.

Miss Ward: In view of the monstrous conditions which apply to these people, will not my right hon. Friend reconsider the whole matter?

Sir W. Womersley: My answer is quite clear. If the condition is not covered by my scheme, it is covered by the organisations themselves, with their own arrangements. I have made inquiries and I find that those arrangements are very good indeed.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that cases to go before the independent appeals tribunal are being held up and considerable time elapses before they are heard; and will he make a statement on the position.

Sir W. Womersley: The decision of the Government to set up only a limited number of tribunals was influenced by the man-power situation in my Department and generally. It was not anticipated that the full volume of appeals could be passed to the tribunals immediately and some

delay is and must continue to be inevitable under present conditions. However, a system of priority for the more urgent cases has been adopted and I am passing appeals to the tribunals as quickly as the situation in my Department will allow. Appeals are settled within an average period of eight weeks after being received by the Tribunal. This period covers the appropriate procedure for hearing and allows for the necessary accumulation of cases at the various centres visited by tribunals.

Mr. Tinker: I realise the difficulty, but could not the right hon. Gentleman notify the applicant when the period has elapsed, and when he has to come before the tribunal? After waiting, say, two or three months, the applicant begins to think the case will not come on. Then he comes to his Member of Parliament to find out what has happened. If the right hon. Gentleman could do what I suggest he would relieve the tension somewhat.

Sir W. Womersley: I am very hopeful that so long a period as two or three months will not elapse. We are doing our level best to bring it down.

Mr. Tinker: What about the cases in which it is as long as that?

Sir W. Womersley: It only means duplication of work in my Department. I shall have to take people off the work of preparing cases for the tribunals in order to put them on to notification.

Mr. Petherick: Where a man has been kept waiting for a very long time, as in one case in my constituency, cannot the right hon. Gentleman instruct his Department to give the man a reason, and an approximate idea of when the appeal is to be heard?

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR ORPHANS (ADOPTION)

Mr. Tinker: asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware of the desire of families to adopt children who have lost their parents through enemy action; and will he make it known how this can be done.

Sir W. Womersley: I have received many offers from persons willing to care for war orphans and I have been able to take advantage of some of these in


boarding out children for whom I am responsible under the War Orphans Act, 1942. If in any of these cases the foster parents express a desire to obtain an order for legal adoption after some considerable period, I am prepared, if I am completely satisfied that this would be in the interests of the child, to support the application to the Court.

Mr. Tinker: I take it, then, that in cases like that the application must be made to his Department, and not to the Home Office?

Sir W. Womersley: Yes, Sir. My Department is entirely responsible.

Mr. Murray: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have already sent a case on to him of a foster parent wanting to adopt a child? What is the cost likely to be?

Sir W. Womersley: If the foster parent is desirous of adopting, there should not be any expense at all.

Mr. G. Strauss: What has the right hon. Gentleman in mind when he says "after some considerable period"? What sort of time?

Sir W. Womersley: After what I consider is a fit and proper time to judge whether a child is being properly looked after and, on the other hand, whether the parents concerned are really desirous of adopting the child. Adoption, I may point out, is a very serious matter.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: When adoption has taken place in this way, does the Minister divest himself of all legal responsibility thereafter?

Sir W. Womersley: No, Sir; I follow out the Act of Parliament absolutely.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA

Grain Shipments

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India if His Majesty's Government will come to an arrangement with the Government of the U.S.A. with a view to shipping being supplied for the shipment of grain to India.

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): Under the Combined Shipping

Adjustment Board procedure, the shipping available to the United Nations, whether belonging to ourselves, the United States or our other Allies is already pooled in the light of all requirements. As was recently announced in India, very substantial shipments of foodgrains have been and are being made to India.

Mr. Sorensen: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the American statement that grain could be sent from America if we could supply the shipping? Does that denote some difficulty that could be cleared up after closer inquiry?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir. There is no question of clearing up. Our Ministry of War Transport and the American War Shipping Administration are, naturally in close touch as to the best allocation of shipping for all the many requirements of the Allies.

Mr. Sorensen: Is grain being taken by our ships to India just now?

Mr. Amery: It is taken from the ports most convenient, by the routes most economical of shipping, to India.

Hindu-Moslem Settlement (Proposals)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India if he can state the terms of the proposals associated with Mr. Rajagopalachari and Mr. Gandhi and communicated to Mr. Jinnah.

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member will have seen the terms of the proposals referred to as published in the Press of 10th July. They were not communicated directly to Government.

Mr. Sorensen: Would not the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries in order that Members of this House might be informed of these very promising proposals, in view of the possibility of forming the basis of some fresh attempt to solve the deadlock?

Mr. Amery: I understand that these proposals did not end in any agreement.

Mr. Sorensen: Could not the right hon. Gentleman give every encouragement to steps towards agreement?

Mr. Amery: We have always made it clear that we would welcome any agreement between the leading communities.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Signalling Apparatus (Order in Council)

Major C. S. Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the reason for paragraph (a) of the Order in Council, dated 29th June, 1944 (S.R. & O. No. 741, of 1944), which provides for the revocation of paragraph (2a) of Regulation 7, which empowers the Secretary of State to prohibit the possession by any person of apparatus capable of transmitting signals to the enemy.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Experience has shown that this paragraph is no longer needed and that any necessary restrictions can be effected by the use of the general powers conferred by Defence Regulation 40.

Part-Time Wardens (Boots)

Mr. Guy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will reconsider the question of issuing boots to part-time wardens.

Mr. H. Morrison: The ban on the issue of boots to part-time wardens was not imposed until last August, and those in the service before that date have in most cases received boots and been allowed to retain them. Part-time wardens who now transfer to whole-time paid service thereby become eligible for an issue of boots if they were previously without them. I regret that the national footwear situation does not permit of issues being again authorised to part-time personnel; but they are eligible for compensation in money and coupons for any damage sustained on duty to their own footwear.

Shelter Accident Lawsuit (Hearing in Camera)

Sir Percy Harris: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why it was considered necessary by the Government to insist on the Bethnal Green shelter case being held in camera.

Mr. H. Morrison: On the information before me at the time the proceedings began, I felt bound to take the view that it would be contrary to the public interest that the case should be heard otherwise than in camera. I regret that, for a similar reason, I do not feel able to indi-

cate the specific grounds on which that decision was based.

Sir P. Harris: Is it not a fact that this incident took place over 18 months ago, and that the borough council have made it quite clear that there was no suggestion of panic? Does my right hon. Friend not realise the bad impression that it makes to interfere with publicity in the courts, particularly in a neighbourhood where many people have suffered bereavement?

Mr. Morrison: I understand the point of view of my right hon. Friend. It would have involved the full discussion of a large amount of detail of what happens at either an air-raid incident or an incident connected with possible air-raid incidents. If that detail were published it would be information useful to the enemy. On balance, I came to the conclusion that it ought not to be published. The learned judge, however, gave his judgment in public, and, to that extent, the public has been informed. I noticed that my right hon. Friend accused me in the Press of hushing up the case. [Interruption.] That is the headline, and that is what he is reported to have said. He knows me well enough to know that I would not hush up a case.

Commander Bower: Is not this only another example of that passion for secrecy, without which we contrived to win the last war in less time than this one?

Mr. Morrison: My hon. and gallant Friend, not for the first time in his life, is quite wrong.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a definite assurance that the intention was not to protect the people mainly responsible?

Mr. Morrison: I assure the hon. Member that there was no wish whatever to protect anybody who might have been criticised if the affair had been public—not in the least. I think that this House knows me well enough to know that I do not protect people if they are guilty of inefficiency or of wrong conduct.

Oral Answers to Questions — RESERVOIRS (DESIGN AND INSPECTION)

Mr. Hugh Lawson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has had any recent consultations with


the professional bodies concerned regarding the design and inspection of reservoirs; and if it is his intention to include any alterations to the law on this subject in any future legislation relating to water supply.

Mr. H. Morrison: The Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act of 1930 makes it clear that the responsibility for the design and inspection of reservoirs is to rest on the qualified engineers employed for these purposes by the undertakers. The responsibility of the Home Secretary is limited to ensuring that the persons placed on the panels of engineers who can be so employed shall be properly qualified. In exercising this responsibility the Home Secretary is required to consult with the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and to act in conjunction with the Minister of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland. If the hon. Member wishes to make representations to me, I shall be glad to consider them: but as at present advised I know of no sufficient case for an amendment of the Act of 1930.

Oral Answers to Questions — FLYING BOMB ATTACKS

Blast (Protective Measures)

Mr. Edgar Granville: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what instructions have been given to Civil Defence authorities, wardens and the general public on the best preventive measures for the protection of windows from the effect of bomb blast.

Mr. H. Morrison: Instructions as to the best methods of protecting windows against blast have been given in official publications from time to time during the war. Up to date advice framed in the light of the present situation as regards the supply of materials was given wide publicity by the Press last week-end.

Mr. Granville: In view of what the Prime Minister has said in regard to the number of casualties from flying glass, can the right hon. Gentleman say if there is an adequate stock of this material, and if the lessons of the blitz of 1940–41 have given us any new material which can be used? Will he take some steps through the B.B.C. to state the exact measures which should be taken with regard to blast?

Mr. Morrison: My impression is that the B.B.C. did broadcast the Ministry of Home Security's advice. Responsibility for the supply of substitute material is a matter for the Minister of Works, and I understand that my Noble Friend is accelerating the supply of the substitute material.

Mr. Walter Edwards: Will my right hon. Friend consider using the cinemas of the country, particularly in the South of England, to explain to people the precautions they should take with regard to the flying bomb?

Mr. Morrison: I will certainly consider that. We do give advice from time to time, but it must be remembered that the people in Southern England and London have an extensive experience of bombing, and my impression is that they are fairly sensible, and know how to take care of themselves as much as they can.

Mr. Thorne: Will my right hon. Friend state whose duty it is to have windows replaced when they have been blasted out?

Mr. Morrison: That is a question of first aid repairs, which is a matter on which the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Works co-operate.

Mr. Astor: Is there any prospect of more protective wire netting for the protection of windows against blast?

Mr. Morrison: It is no good asking me about materials. That question must be addressed to the Minister of Works.

Warnings

Mrs. Cazalet Keir: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider issuing instructions to employers of small works regarding arrangements for the protection of their employees on the sounding of an air-raid alert.

Mr. H. Morrison: Advice to managements and workers about the protection afforded by specialised warning signals is contained in a pamphlet "Front Line Again," which is being issued to large and small factories alike in target areas. The original advice as to the suitable type of emergency protection in factories has been kept up to date in the periodical issues of the Industrial Bulletins.

Mr. E. Granville: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether instructions have now been given for a uniform system of air-raid warnings where there are a number of factories in the same close area.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has yet devised any general visual signal to indicate the immediate approach of flying bombs and thereby show people in the streets unable to hear their noise that it is time to seek shelter.

Mr. H. Morrison: This matter is being examined.

Mr. Granville: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he will be in a position to make a statement on it?

Mr. Morrison: I am not sure. I do not like to promise when I am not quite sure but I might be able to do so in a week's time, or just possibly before then. There are a lot of arguments both ways. If I may say so, I think that the House and the Press would be wise not to try and rush us into a decision, until we have all the details worked out.

Sir T. Moore: On a point of Order. My Question No. 18 is in no respect similar to the Question which the right hon. Gentleman has answered. I have asked that some general visual signal should be given to the people in the streets who cannot hear the sound of approaching bombs—people walking about in the streets.

Mr. Morrison: I have said that that is under consideration.

Sir T. Moore: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider appointing a specific fire-watcher on the highest building in each street or neighbourhood in charge of a flagstaff who would give indication to the people in the neighbourhood of the street?

Mr. Morrison: The hon. and gallant Member will be aware that if there was to be a fire-watcher on every high building, in every street or vicinity, a considerable man-power problem would arise, and the war effort would be affected.

Mr. Shinwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable variation in the warning in the London area, as for example the difference, say, between the

House air raid warning of "Imminent danger" and that at Waterloo Station? It is quite possible to become confused as a result of these variations. Why should it take another week to deal with a simple matter of that kind?

Mr. Morrison: If my hon. Friend were in office he would find that things are not so simple as he thinks they are when he sits on that bench. I quite agree he has mentioned a relevant factor in the matter. I am favourably disposed towards it, but I have to consider what warning should be given and how it is to be operated, or how far it can be reliable. If this is done I hope that hon. Members will not put down Questions to the Minister of Home Security wanting to know why a warning was inaccurate, because it is not possible to get universal reliability. My hon. Friend's point is a perfectly fair one and is engaging urgent attention.

Mr. Shinwell: I do not want to indulge in any carping criticism, but may I put this to my right hon. Friend? Is it not the case that the Government were aware of the possibility of these events emerging, and surely a matter of this kind might have received prior consideration?

Mr. Morrison: The Government were aware that a new weapon was coming, but exactly what the nature of the new weapon was, what its performance would be, and so on, was not known to the Government. For anyone to argue that the Government could have had every detail ready to deal with a new weapon that had not arrived is unreasonable. I venture to claim, not with modesty but with complete boastfulness, that the readiness of the Civil Defence service to meet this menace has been remarkable.

Deep Shelters (Tickets)

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say who, or what organisation, is principally responsible for allocating tickets for the deep shelters; whether any steps were taken to ascertain if bombed-out people in rest centres required shelter accommodation; and whether there are still bunks available in all the shelters for families who may be bombed out and require sleeping quarters.

Mr. H. Morrison: As I explained in the answers which I gave on 13th July to Questions by my hon. Friend the Member


for Kennington (Mr. Wilmot), tickets for the substantial residue of accommodation remaining, after the transfer of the existing tube station population, are made available to appropriate local authorities, who have undertaken the responsibility for distributing them to individual residents in their areas. Local authorities have been instructed that the tickets are intended for persons without adequate shelter, preference being given to those who have lost their homes. The procedure adopted is to invite applications by a notice posted outside the local authority's offices, and this applies equally to occupants of rest centres.

Mr. Strauss: Is the Home Secretary aware that some local authorities issued all the tickets that were given to them originally, and that they have no tickets available for people who need them now? What is to happen to these people? Were the original tickets issued altogether, and is there any chance of people who have been, or may be, bombed out getting into the shelters?

Mr. Morrison: I am much obliged to the hon. Member for not referring to the local authority. If he will let me have particulars, I will see what I can do about it. There have been imperfections on the part of some local authorities, but one has to be generous. I will see what can be done.

Mr. Bowles: How many deep shelters are there, and are they all opened?

Mr. Morrison: I think that that has been announced, but I forget the exact particulars at the moment. The programme is going along all right.

Mr. Bowles: Will the right hon. Gentleman have them all opened as soon as he can?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, as soon as I can.

Mr. Astor: Is there any prospect of any of these shelters being opened by day, to allow people on night work to get some sleep?

Mr. Morrison: That is under consideration. I am afraid there are some difficulties because cleaning and so on have to be done, but I have not closed my mind on the point.

Protected Areas (Access)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Health the procedure under which elderly people and others resident in evacuable areas, being within the categories now allowed access to protected areas, may obtain permission to enter such areas by private arrangement for the purpose of staying with relatives or otherwise.

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Minister of Health what steps need be taken by mothers with children of school age, infirm, aged, invalid and blind persons who desire to go to banned areas other than those recently exempted, under private arrangement schemes.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): Persons within the categories which are given general permission to enter the protected areas are not required to obtain special permits for that purpose, but, if challenged, have to satisfy the Police in those areas that they come within the permitted classes. Persons of the priority classes under the Government Evacuation Scheme who require financial assistance in the form of free vouchers and billeting allowances should apply to the Local Authority in the evacuable area for vouchers and billeting certificates.

Evacuation

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Health what action he proposes to take to avoid parties of evacuated women and children being stranded at their destination; whether, in particular, he has inquired into the case of the group of children about whom particulars have been sent to him; and whether he intends immediately to requisition all houses in reception areas and in any part of the country where the whole or part of such houses can be used for accommodating evacuees.

Mr. Willink: I have no evidence of parties of evacuated women and children being stranded at their destinations. It is often impossible, and generally undesirable, to billet a large party of evacuees on the day of their arrival, and it is a common practice to provide overnight accommodation in Rest Centres and other suitable buildings until billeting can be completed. I have made inquiries regarding the reception of the group of children about whom my hon. Friend wrote to me, and I am sending


him all the information I have been able to obtain. Local authorities in the reception areas have power to requisition any unoccupied properties for the purpose of housing evacuees, and I am also taking steps to secure for this purpose a large number of houses and other properties which are being released by other Departments who no longer require them.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that, in this particular case, on the evidence of two people who accompanied the children to their destination, there was no adequate preparation at all, and that they would have been stranded had it not been for the splendid offices of the Pioneer Corps and the A.T.S.?

Mr. Willink: The evidence, even of two witnesses, is not always completely accurate. I have given the facts, about which I understand there is a measure of difference, and I hope my hon. Friend will consider those facts.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the Minister accept a statement made by these two people if I send it to him to-day?

Mr. Willink: I will most certainly receive it and consider it, but I could not accept it as accurate if it was in conflict with other evidence I have received.

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Health if he has any statement to make regarding the evacuation of women and children from London; and whether their reception in the safe areas has been satisfactory.

Mr. Willink: Since 2nd July, over 170,000 women and children have been evacuated from London in organised parties. Considering the large numbers involved and the speed of the operation, it has been effected with a smoothness that reflects credit on all concerned. Some difficulties have inevitably occurred, but the reception in the safer areas has on the whole been very satisfactory. I am glad to have this opportunity of paying tribute to the billeting authorities, and to the very large number of householders who have willingly agreed to receive evacuees. An operation of this size cannot, of course, be successfully accomplished without the good will and co-operation of all, including the evacuees

themselves. I would especially urge upon those who have been evacuated to safer areas that they should remain there.

Mr. Bowles: On a point of Order. May I ask for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker? Here we have information, which may or may not be of comfort to the enemy, that 170,000 people have been evacuated. Where are we in this matter? Are we to have a secret meeting upstairs and not——

Mr. Speaker: It is not a point of Order for me, but a matter for the discretion of the Minister concerned.

Sir T. Moore: In view of the publicity given in the Press to the few cases in which difficulties have arisen, would it be fair to say what the percentage is of those cases in which difficulties arose, in relation to the general numbers happily evacuated?

Mr. Willink: I have indicated that, in the great majority of cases, reception has been willing, and all that I could wish for.

Sir Herbert Williams: Since the figures have been disclosed for London, is there any objection to the figures being given for individual areas, in view of the fact that the Croydon Press last Saturday gave the full figures for Croydon?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): It is certainly very improper that details for all places should be given, because it gives the enemy advice as to how to direct their fire. The general figure of 170,000 evacuated from London would have no effect other than to disappoint the enemy, who would have expected more. A very great deal of this matter can be talked about. There are, however, particular points you do not want to talk about, and most people can see those points for themselves.

Earl Winterton: Arising out of that reply, can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it can possibly give any information to the enemy to say how many people have gone from a particular area, in view of the fact that there is no allotment of evacuees to areas, and that the whole of London and certain parts of the adjacent counties are evacuee areas?

The Prime Minister: If you took a particular borough and said there had been a very large figure of evacuees from that place, it would show that there had been some damage.

Mr. Shinwell: Cannot the enemy ascertain that a particular borough has been attacked by reading the death notices in "The Times" and other papers?

The Prime Minister: There are not so very many death notices in "The Times."

Mr. Edgar Granville: asked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied with the progress of the existing scheme for evacuating mothers and children and billeting them upon a voluntary basis; and whether further measures are contemplated in order to expedite the arrangements for allocating accommodation after the arrival at the reception areas.

Mr. Willink: The reply to the first part of this Question is "Yes, Sir." All billeting authorities have compulsory powers, if they find it necessary to use them. As regards the second part of the Question, if my hon. Friend has in mind the practice of keeping evacuees, on arrival in reception areas, in rest centres for one or two nights before they are billeted, this procedure has the advantage of enabling the billeting authority to assess the needs of the party and to billet upon a properly selective basis. There are objections to billeting the evacuees straight from the train after a long journey and towards the end of the day.

Mr. Granville: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that, where there have been difficulties, some of them have been because his Department sent the wrong figure to the local authorities in evacuation areas, and will he see to that?

Mr. Willink: If the hon. Member will bring any such case to my attention, of course I will look into it.

Earl Winterton: Will my right hon. and learned Friend make it clear whether it is or is not the fact that these people leave areas not necessarily because they have been bombed but because they think they are going to be bombed?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEATH SENTENCE (REPRIEVE)

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the public disquiet aroused by the recent case of a mother and daughter sentenced to death for the murder of the 13-days old illegitimate son of the daughter; that these women lay in the condemned cell for nine weeks; and that II days elapsed after their appeal had been dismissed before a decision to reprieve was made, only four days before the announced date of execution; and if he will in future accelerate decision in such cases, in order to shorten the suspense of the condemned persons.

Mr. H. Morrison: The suggestion that there are grounds for public disquiet is unfounded. There are some exceptional cases, in which it is practicable and right to announce a reprieve within two or three days: but normally the steps which must be taken before those grave decisions are reached and announced cannot be completed so hurriedly, and it would be wrong for me to undertake that, as a general rule, the period will be shortened.

Mr. Davies: Without pressing my right hon. Friend unduly, might I ask whether he could give some explanation of the delay in this particular case?

Mr. Morrison: There was no undue delay. This case followed the normal procedure. It did not have the accelerated procedure, because I did not think it right that it should. This was a murder. One has to have some sympathy with the murdered as well as with the murderers—perhaps just as much. But I think that, if my hon. Friend checks up, he will find that there was no undue delay.

Mr. Davies: I hope my right hon. Friend does not suggest that I have no sympathy with the murdered?

Mr. Morrison: Not in the least. But I have to consider both sides. I think that my hon. Friend's inquiries are usually directed on behalf of the guilty person.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Citizenship (Instruction)

Mr. Hugh Lawson: asked the President of the Board of Education if the instruction on the duties of citizenship that it is proposed should be given in


schools will include a consideration of the duty of the citizen to defend international law; and if he will give an assurance that these instructions will be debated in Parliament before they are issued.

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): In accordance with an assurance given in another place, I propose to seek the advice of the central advisory councils, to be set up under Clause 4 of the Education Bill, on the content and methods of instruction in the duties of citizenship. The hon. Member will be aware that Clause 5 of the Bill provides for the inclusion in the Minister's annual report of an account of the proceedings of the councils.

Council Schools (Managers)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will encourage local education authorities to make provision in the instruments of management of council schools for the opportunity to be given to individual citizens who are not members of the education authorities to serve as managers, in accordance with the method successfully used for many years under the London County Council.

Mr. Butler: It is the general practice of county local education authorities to appoint as managers of council schools persons who are not members of the authority. Under the provisions of the Bill, all local education authorities, and not only county authorities, will be required to appoint managers of county primary schools. I do not doubt that, in making such appointments, county boroughs will in this respect follow the well-established practice of county authorities.

Mr. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some very large authorities appoint only the education committee as managers, and that that excludes practically all other persons from this valuable service? Will he bear that in mind?

Mr. Butler: Yes; and I hope that things will turn out as my answer describes.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

National Health Service

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the general misgiving about the White

Paper proposals on a National Health Service, expressed in recent months by many local authorities, voluntary hospital associations and the medical and allied professions, he will postpone the introduction of legislation pending further discussion in the House, or until after a General Election.

Mr. Willink: I do not think that there is any general desire—or that it is the wish of the House—that we should depart from the procedure previously announced; which assumes a stage of full discussion with the professional and other organisations concerned, followed by the submission of legislative proposals.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Will my right hon. and learned Friend not reconsider this perfectly reasonable request? Does he appreciate that the only country in the world that has succeeded in establishing a whole-time State service is Russia? And has he any evidence whatever that the people of this country desire this great change in their traditional relationship with the family doctor?

Mr. Willink: There are three parts to that supplementary. To the first, the answer is: "No, Sir"; to the third, the answer is: "Yes, Sir"; and the second I am unable to answer.

Kingsbury Water Supply Scheme

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Health why, notwithstanding written requests to the Ministry, dated 23rd June and 6th July, from the Tamworth Rural District Council, they had not received by 12th July W.B.A. priority and symbol number and priority certificates in respect of controlled materials to enable them to proceed with the Kingsbury Water Supply Scheme, the recommended tenders for which were approved by the Ministry by letter dated 13th June; and whether, having regard to the continued hardship caused in Kingsbury, he will investigate the delay.

Mr. Willink: The period since 13th June has been fully occupied in securing necessary consents to the use of money, labour, and materials for this project. Certain essential financial particulars were not received from the council until 24th June, and a suggestion for variation in the type of materials was made by the Council, in a later letter dated 6th July. Loan sanction and W.B.A. priority were sent to the


Council on 15th July, and the contract symbol number and licences for controlled materials have since been issued.

Kettering General Hospital (Staff)

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the maternity ward at the Kettering General Hospital is shortly to be closed on account of shortage of staff, and; owing to the shortage of maternity beds in this area, what steps he proposes to take to prevent the closing of this ward.

Mr. Willink: The general shortage of midwives makes it necessary to use to the fullest advantage all that are available. A small unit of seven beds, such as that at Kettering, does not secure the most effective use of staff. Nevertheless, my officers, in co-operation with those of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, have made special efforts to keep the ward open. I understand that sufficient staff has now been secured for this purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Bombed Houses (Rate Liability)

Sir George Jones: asked the Minister of Health whether he will take steps to ensure that a rated occupier of a house rendered uninhabitable through enemy action shall not continue legally liable to pay the rates on the said house during such uninhabitability merely on the ground that his furniture has not been removed from the said house.

Mr. Willink: The legal liability to the payment of rates can be altered only by amending legislation, for which, as at present advised, I do not think I should be justified in asking the House. In November, 1940, a Circular, of which I am sending my hon. and learned Friend a copy, was issued from the Ministry of Health with a view to meeting the circumstances then arising from enemy action, in London and elsewhere, and I see no reason to doubt that rating authorities will be able and willing similarly to meet the needs of the present situation.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: Could not the right hon. and learned Gentleman make provision under Defence Regulations, as this involves great hardship?

Mr. Willink: No, Sir. I am advised not with regard to legal liability for rates. But I will send my hon. Friend also the Circular to which I have referred.

Sir G. Jones: Will the Minister tell the rating authorities that they ought not to enforce payment of rates when the people cannot move their furniture owing to lack of facilities for transport and storage?

Mr. Willink: Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will consider the terms of the Circular that was issued and discuss the matter with me if he considers it necessary.

Prefabricated Houses

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Health whether he can make a statement on when it is proposed to start supplying prefabricated houses to Tyneside, in view of the serious overcrowding.

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the Minister of Health whether he is now able to make any statement on the policy of the Government regarding the use to be made by local authorities of factory-manufactured houses.

Mr. Willink: I would refer my hon. Friends to the statement by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday.

Miss Ward: Will the Minister make a statement on the general priority of allocation?

Mr. Willink: I think the hon. Lady is probably aware that it was announced yesterday that there will be discussions and legislation in regard to this matter before the House rises. That will be a convenient opportunity for a statement on the subject.

Houses (Sale Price)

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the continued rise in the price of house property; and, in view of the shortage of houses, will he take steps to control the sale price.

Mr. Willink: This matter is under examination, and I shall make a statement as soon as I am in a position to do so.

Miss Ward: Will the Minister bear in mind that it has been under examination for a very long time, and that the position is urgent and unsatisfactory?

Mr. Willink: I am sure the hon. Lady appreciates that it is a question of quite exceptional difficulty.

Rural Workers' Houses (Clearance and Demolition Orders)

Mr. Storey: asked the Minister of Health whether, on account of the shortage of houses and the fluctuating standards upon which many rural houses were scheduled for clearance or demolition before the war, he will instruct local authorities to include all such houses in the comprehensive survey which he recently ordered and include in the Government's proposals for the amendment of the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts, power to revoke a clearance or demolition Order in respect of any house which the survey shows can be reconditioned.

Mr. Willink: No, Sir. For some itme after building can be resumed, efforts will have to be concentrated on the building of new houses rather than on slum clearance, and many unfit houses may, unfortunately, have to continue in occupation for some time. But the houses to which my hon. Friend refers have all been found, after careful consideration, to be unfit for habitation and incapable of being brought up to a proper standard for any expense their owners were willing to incur, and I should not be justified in suggesting action which might perpetuate bad housing conditions for longer than may be necessary.

Mr. Storey: Is it not a fact that many of these houses were condemned on surveys that were quite inadequate, and would it not be advisable to keep these houses, in view of the great shortage that will exist?

Mr. Willink: I have indicated that it will not be likely, immediately after the war, that we can do away with these houses.

Accommodation (Furniture Storage)

Mr. Norman Bower: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the irritation among people living under overcrowded conditions at the sight of residential accommodation being used for storage purposes; and whether he will modify the terms of Circular 2845 in such a way as to permit local authorities to requisition residential premises used for storage purposes only.

Mr. Willink: I cannot give any general authorisation to requisition in such circumstances, but there is no reason why the local authority should not approach the owner or occupier to investigate the possibilities of storing the contents elsewhere. I would remind my hon. Friend, however, that storage accommodation is limited, and authorisation or licence by the appropriate Government Department is necessary for the use of premises for the purpose of storage.

Sites (Grouping Scheme)

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: asked the Minister of Health why, in view of the fact that many of the groups formed under circular 14/44 consist of over six local authorities, that each local authority has to prepare its own specification and that the sites within the groups are often scattered, it has been decided that it is more economical for these sites to be prepared by firms who can work on a large scale.

Mr. Willink: One of the advantages of this scheme is that it makes it unnecessary for each member of a group to prepare a separate specification. The Question is, therefore, in part, based on a misapprehension, but I may add that the Government remain of the opinion that this method is the most economical both in money and in labour.

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: asked the Minister of Health whether the policy outlined in circular 14/44, according to which it is considered more economical for building sites to be prepared by large firms under comparatively large contracts, will be extended to the building of post-war houses.

Mr. Willink: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — DURHAM (PROPOSED ELECTRICITY STATION)

Mr. Storey: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he has considered the appeal lodged by the Bishop of Durham, the Dean and Chapter, the University of Durham and the Durham Preservation Society for a public inquiry into the proposal to construct an electrical power station in the vicinity of Durham Cathedral and Castle; and whether he can give an assurance that such an inquiry will be held.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison): Last April, in pursuance of my statutory powers, I directed the Durham rural district council as interim development authority to refer to me for decision any application which the North Eastern Electric Supply Company Ltd. might make for consent to the erection of buildings or the use of land in their area for the purposes of an electricity generating station. The company has now made such an application and it has been referred to me for decision accordingly. I will consider the representations to which my hon. Friend refers and all other relevant matters before I give my decision, and I will not grant the application without holding a local inquiry.

Mr. Storey: While thanking the Minister for his reply, which will bring relief not only to the people of Durham, but to the people of the country as a whole, may I be assured that he will take every possible step to safeguard Durham from the fate of York, where the Minster has to share with a gasometer, pride of place in the plain of York?

Mr. Ritson: Is the Minister aware that the public authorities are strongly supporting the company in this, but they do not object to a public inquiry? As the Member for the division, may I be allowed to put that question?

Mr. Morrison: I am aware of the fact that there are two sides to this question, as there are to most other questions.

Oral Answers to Questions — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he has considered the memorandum sent to him by the Town and Country Planning Association on the Bill now before this House; and whether he will consult with this association before the Committee stage.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I am considering the documents which the Association have been good enough to send me, and shall be pleased to consider any further matters which they may wish to put before me.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS (INCREASE) ACT

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the declaration forms required to be filled up by claimants to increased pensions under the recent Pensions (Increase) Act, have now been issued.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Anderson): I understand that these forms are being delivered this week to the Departments concerned, who will proceed with their issue to pensioners as rapidly as present staffing difficulties will permit.

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he anticipates payment of the increases of pensions under the Pensions (Increase) Act will begin.

Sir J. Anderson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) on 6th July.

Mr. Hutchinson: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that this payment will be expedited as far as circumstances allow?

Sir J. Anderson: I can assure the House that I am doing my utmost to expedite this matter. There have been difficulties; printing has taken much longer than had been expected.

Commander Agnew: Can my right hon. Friend say whether payment will be made on the initiative of the local authorities, or whether individual applications will have to be made for extra allowances?

Sir J. Anderson: In certain cases individual applications will have to be made on forms which are being issued for the purpose on the initiative of the local authorities.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Am I right in assuming that the normal procedure with the Department, which has a complete list of pensioners, is to send the necessary form to them, which they will fill up and return to the Department, and then the matter will be dealt with?

Sir J. Anderson: That is so, but there is a limited class of cases in which the Department could make the payment without application.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH TANKS (PERFORMANCE)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a full statement on the performance of our tanks in Italy, France and Russia.

The Prime Minister: Before the House rises I shall hope to give a solid report upon the performances of British tanks in the various theatres of war. For the present I rest on my statement of 16th March, as follows:
The next time that the British Army take the field in country suitable for the use of armour, they will be found to be equipped in a manner at least equal to the forces of any other country in the world."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March,1944; Vol. 398, c. 393.]

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Farms Workers' Cottages (Possession)

Mr. Loverseed: asked the Minister of Agriculture in what circumstances county war agricultural executive committees are empowered to issue certificates to farmers authorising or supporting proceedings for possession of houses occupied by farm workers.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): Under the Rent Restrictions Acts, as modified by Defence Regulations, a County War Agricultural Executive Committee is empowered to issue to a landlord a certificate that a person for whose occupation a dwelling-house is required is, or is to be, employed on work necessary for the proper working of an agricultural holding. But the Committee must withhold the certificate if it is satisfied that the sitting tenant is employed by some person other than the landlord on work necessary for the proper working of a holding, and that the production of food will be better promoted by the occupation of the house by the sitting tenant than by the person for whose occupation it is required.

Mr. Loverseed: Would the right hon. Gentleman clarify the position a little? He stated that the certificate may be granted to the landlord. Does that mean that the farmer who is not himself a landlord, but a tenant farmer, can be granted the certificate in such circumstances?

Mr. Hudson: I think the answer is "Yes," but I would like to see the question actually on the Paper.

Ploughed-up Land (Re-seeding)

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will indicate his policy as regards the re-seeding of land which has been ploughed out under the war-time ploughing campaign and reseeded to new leys, in view of the widespread increase of weeds attributable to the bad seed mixtures which are now being applied in many districts; and whether he will issue instructional advice on these matters.

Mr. Hudson: The suggestion in the first part of the Question is not borne out by any information in my possession. As regards the last part, instructions have been issued.

Mr. De la Bère: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever seriously considered how very small is the information which is in his possession on this matter?

Mr. Price: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that many of the seed mixtures which have been sold in recent years contained a very large percentage of docks and Yorkshire fog?

Post-War Development (Credit Facilities)

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will indicate the source from which the new capital for farming development will be made available to farmers for development in the years immediately following the conclusion of hostilities; and whether he will give an assurance that the necessary capital required will be forthcoming.

Mr. Hudson: I would refer my hon. Friend to Clause 2 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which provides for credit facilities to agriculture at a favourable rate of interest for capital development through the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation and the Scottish Agricultural Securities Corporation on the security of agricultural land. For short-term credit, farmers should be able to rely mainly on the banks.

Mr. De la Bère: Has the right hon. Gentleman any estimate or calculation of the amount of capital required for farming development per acre after the war? Has he gone into this matter very thoroughly? I am really not satisfied with the answer, and I hope to have an opportunity to express myself most vigorously.

Poultry Produce Prices

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Minister of Agriculture with what bodies he is consulting on poultry produce prices and if any association which is representative of the specialised poultry industry is included.

Mr. Hudson: I am not at present consulting any bodies on poultry produce prices.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Arising out of that answer, which I was quite unable to hear, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that the specialised poultry keepers have their own organisation, and whether he is consulting with that organisation?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir, but not about poultry produce prices.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE (FOREIGN INDEBTEDNESS)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on whose authority Lord Keynes disclosed the loss of foreign investments and the amount of our foreign indebtedness; and whether he can explain why these figures were refused to hon. Members.

Sir J. Anderson: I am not aware that Lord Keynes in his remarks to the Press on 7th July, gave any figures which have been refused to the House. In my Budget Speech I stated that we had parted with overseas assets to the extent of £1,000,000,000 and had incurred undischarged overseas liabilities amounting to £2,000,000,000. I added that this was not the end of the tale. Lord Keynes, as I understand it, carried forward his estimate to the end of 1944, but as his figure included an estimate of our pre-war liabilities while mine did not, the two figures are not strictly comparable.

Mr. Shinwell: When, some time ago, I ventured to ask the right hon. Gentleman for an estimate of our total indebtedness at the conclusion of the war, he told me that it would not be in the public interest to give it.

Sir J. Anderson: Lord Keynes has not given an estimate of the total indebtedness at the end of the war.

Mr. Shinwell: Has not Lord Keynes disclosed in his recent statement that his estimate of total foreign indebtedness at the conclusion of war would be 12,000,000,000 dollars or £3,000,000,000?

Sir J. Anderson: No, Sir, not at all.

Mr. Shinwell: Oh, yes.

Sir J. Anderson: He was dealing with the position at the end of this year, which was a very different matter.

Mr. Shinwell: I thought the war was going to be over this year.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICE (SCIENTIFIC STAFFS)

Mr. Price: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is yet in a position to make any statement about the investigation into conditions of service, pay and prospects of scientific personnel in the Civil Service, which was stated by the Paymaster General to be in progress on 20th July, 1943.

Sir J. Anderson: No, Sir. Further investigation has proved to be necessary. Moreover, I cannot at present say whether it will prove possible to make a public statement about scientific staffs in advance of decisions on other sections of the Civil Service. I can, however, assure the hon. Member that the Government are fully alive to the importance of adequate arrangements for the recruitment of scientific staffs of high quality after the war.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT POLICY (STAFFS)

Mr. Mander: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the administrative measures contemplated by the Government to implement their employment policy as explained in Cmd. 6527 include the establishment forthwith on a permanent basis of a central staff qualified to measure and analyse economic trends and submit appreciations of them to the Ministers concerned as described in paragraph 81.

Sir J. Anderson: This central staff forms part of the machinery which the Government are planning to maintain on a permanent basis after the war to assist in carrying out the policy outlined


in the White Paper on Employment Policy. This will involve developing and integrating staffs which are available at the present time, partly temporary and partly permanent; and action to that end will be taken at the appropriate moment.

Mr. Mander: Will the staff be working under the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Sir J. Anderson: I should like notice of that Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — UTILITY BEDSTEADS (BEDDING)

Mr. Murray: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Brandon and Byshottles Co-operative Society are experiencing great shortages of flock mattresses and other bedding that go with utility bedsteads; and whether he will endeavour to remedy this position by increasing the supply of the above-mentioned articles.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): Arrangements have already been made whereby persons entitled to Utility bedsteads can also obtain priority dockets which will give them priority in the supply of Utility mattresses, Utility sheets, and National Price Controlled blankets.

Mr. Murray: Is the Minister aware that in the Brandon and Byshottles Co-operative Society there are any amount of bedsteads but no bedding at all and no mattresses of any description to sell to the people? The people are refusing to have the bedsteads because the other material is not available.

Captain Waterhouse: I am aware that there is a certain shortage; the supply of mattresses depends on the amount of ticking available. On the other hand, inquiries show that Brandon and Byshottles is no worse off than other parts of the country.

Mr. Murray: What is the use of having utility bedsteads in the Co-operative Society, unless the mattresses are there to go with them? It is absolutely no use at all.

Captain Waterhouse: Had the hon. Member listened to my reply he would have realised that I was speaking of the area and not of a particular shop in it.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY (STRIKES)

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will specify the number of strikes that have taken place in the coalfields since 6th June; the reason of such strikes; how they were settled and on what terms; and whether any still continue.

Captain McEwen (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. One hundred strikes have taken place in the coalmining industry since 6th June. Fifty-four strikes arose from demands for payments or increases in wages; 30 from dissatisfaction with working conditions; eight from sympathy with dismissed workmen and eight for miscellaneous reasons. Eighty-four strikes have been settled; agreement was reached in five cases; work was resumed under pre-stoppage conditions in 52 cases and in the remaining 27 cases negotiations were to take place. Sixteen strikes still continue.

Sir T. Moore: Could my hon. and gallant Friend call the attention of the miners of England and Wales to the position in Scotland where the Scottish Mine Workers' Association recently passed a resolution that they would have no more strikes until victory is won?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Soft Fruit Prices

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Food why sales by English growers of raspberries, loganberries and blackberries are subject to lower maximum prices than sales by Scottish growers.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): In the case of both loganberries and blackberries a single maximum grower's price applies throughout the United Kingdom. The price was increased for raspberries grown in one area of Scotland where they were much damaged.

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Food why the same maximum price as last year has been fixed for plums, having regard to the effect of frost on crop prospects.

Mr. Mabane: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which my right hon. and gallant Friend gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère).

Sir J. Mellor: As that reply did not cover this Question, will my right hon. Friend now give some fuller information?

Mr. Mabane: I think if my hon. Friend refers to the reply I have given, he will find that it does answer the point he asked, as to why the same maximum price as last year was fixed for plums. It was in order to ensure an even return over the seasons, not taking into account fluctuations.

Sir J. Mellor: Why should the grower only get the same price for a smaller crop?

Mr. Mabane: Because last year the crop was very substantially in excess of the estimates and therefore in those two years the growers received considerably more than they were expecting to receive.

Mr. De la Bère: Why was there no consultation or arbitration? Why was this a dictated price? Why did the Minister of Agriculture "sell the pass"?

Undersized and Surplus Fish

Mr. Liddall: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that undersized fish landed at Bangor are being sold to hawkers and other persons not licensed to sell fish; if he is satisfied that the levy is being paid on all fish sold to licensed fishmongers in Bangor; and, in view of the Order that all surplus fish must be sent to London, why supplies of surplus fish are being sent to Liverpool.

Mr. Mabane: Complaints have been received that immature fish is being sold at Bangor to hawkers and unlicensed traders and I am aware that fish has recently been sent from Bangor to Liverpool in apparent contravention of the transport directions. These matters are being investigated, but from the records that are available to my Department I am satisfied that there is no significant avoidance of levy by licensed fishmongers at Bangor.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANGANYIKA (DOMESTIC SERVANTS' WAGES)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of a committee set up by the Governor of Tanganyika that it costs an African in Dar-es-Salem 53s. a month to live, but

that the average wage paid by Europeans to domestic servants varies from 35s. to 45s. a month and by Asiatics averages 20s.; and whether he will ask the Governor to prescribe a minimum wage for natives so employed.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): Yes, Sir, I have seen the report. A figure of 53 Shs. 47 cents a month is shown as the entire cost of living at the 1st of January, 1944, of an African in Dar-es-Salaam. As regards the wages paid to domestic servants, my hon. Friend will appreciate that the sums which he mentions do not take account of the considerable additions given by way of food, clothing and lodging. I will, however, consult the Governor in regard to the possibility of instituting a minimum wage for domestic servants.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH FILMS (AFRICAN BACKGROUND)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Information what films with an African background have been produced with Government support during the war.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): In addition to "Wavell's Thirty Thousand," "Desert Victory," and other films dealing with the African campaigns, some 15 short films with an African background have been made with Government support. There are others now in course of production.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES, NORMANDY (POSTAL ADDRESS)

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the Secretary of State for War if, in view of the dissatisfaction caused by the delay in issuing Post Office numbers to units in France, he will remedy this so that senders can take advantage of customs rebates and postal charge reductions for letters and parcels to Service personnel.

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply I gave my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Flight-Lieutenant Teeling) on 13th July in which I said that the address of the troops in Nor-


mandy is British Liberation Army. My hon. and gallant Friend's object is thereby being achieved.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the troops in Normandy are informing their parents that their address is British Western Force? Is he also aware that there is considerable delay because the troops are not being allowed to inform their parents of their units?

Mr. Henderson: I should want notice of the second part of my hon. and gallant Friend's supplementary question. As regards the first part, whatever may be the information that was originally given in a statement made by a journalist, the position none the less remains that the postal address of the Forces in Normandy is as I have indicated in my reply.

Mr. Driberg: But is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the men themselves have written home stating that their address is B.W.E.F.? Is it not evident that those instructions were given out in the units?

Mr. Henderson: That may be. I can say, however, that any letters which have been addressed to B.W.E.F. will be delivered.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the Business of the House for next week?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): The Business for next week will be as follows:

Tuesday, 25th July—Supply (19th Allotted Day) Committee. A Debate will take place on the disposal of Government. surplus property. A White Paper dealing with the matter has been available for some time in the Vote Office. At the hour appointed, the Committee stage of all outstanding Supply Votes will be put from the Chair. Second Reading of the Validation of Wartime Leases Bill [Lords].

Wednesday, 26th July—Supply (20th Allotted Day) Report. A Debate will take place on the International Labour Office and, at the hour appointed, the Report stage of all outstanding Supply Votes will be put from the Chair.

Thursday, 27th July—Consideration of the Lords' Amendments to the Education Bill. Committee and remaining stages of the Validation of Wartime Leases Bill [Lords].

Friday, 28th July—Second Reading of the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Bill.

It may be for the convenience of the House if I make a statement now on the proposed date of the Summer Adjournment. If all urgent and essential business has been completed, we propose that the House should adjourn on Thursday, 3rd August until Tuesday, 26th September. I should, however, warn the House that it may be necessary for us to meet before that date and, if so, as hon. Members are aware, power already exists for Parliament to be recalled at very short notice if the public interest so requires.

I think it may also be convenient if I mention now that it is the intention of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement on the war situation on 2nd August, that is, the week after next, and this statement will be debatable if the House so desires. We thought an appropriate occasion for that would be the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Sir Percy Harris: In reference to the Recess, would it be possible to make arrangements, if occasion should arise, for Members, particularly those from bombed areas, to meet Ministers to discuss any developments or difficulties?

Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir, I have no doubt that could be arranged. Even though the House in not in Session, His Majesty's Ministers are, of course, at the service of the House.

Captain Peter MacDonald: May I ask the Leader of the House, in view of the very great importance of to-day's Debate on the Colonial Empire, if he will consider having the Railway Bills which are to be considered to-day, postponed to another date? These Bills have already been before the House.

Mr. Eden: My hon. and gallant Friend will know that it is not a matter for me, but for the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Mr. Price: Can the Leader of the House say whether he will be able to find time for a Debate on India before we rise?

Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir, I hope to do so, if that is possible, in the week after next.

Mr. Astor: May I ask the Leader of the House, with regard to keeping in touch with the Government on questions affecting bombed-out and reception areas during the Recess, whether it is the intention that the present Committee under the Home Secretary shall continue to meet at periodical intervals during the Recess? May I further put it to him that such a Committee, though extremely valuable and helpful, can never be an acceptable substitute for meetings of this House, when there are very urgent questions concerning our constituents coming up day by day? Could I, therefore, ask him whether, if this bombing and these problems continue, it might be possible to have a short Session every two or three weeks; or else whether, if the Committee which meets the Home Secretary makes representations, Mr. Speaker, that will be considered as a good reason for recalling the House to discuss such questions?

Mr. Eden: I think my hon. Friend can take it that it is the Government's desire to try to help hon. Members in this business, so far as they possibly can, and that it may be thought desirable that the Committee, over which my right hon. Friend presides, should meet from time to time during the Recess. If so, that is by no means excluded. As regards recalling the House, I think hon. Members can have confidence in the Government. If they think their responsibility calls for that action, they will take it, but I do not want to enter into that now.

Mr. Rhys Davies: On Wednesday next shall we be able to discuss the work of the International Labour Office, without being tied exclusively to the results of the recent Conference?

Mr. Eden: I think my hon. Friend's conclusion is clearly correct.

Mr. Bowles: Has the right hon. Gentleman made up his mind whether the Prime Minister's war statement is to be debated or not? May we be told that it will be taken on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill and that it will certainly be debatable?

Mr. Eden: That is the position. How much the House chooses to debate the statement is a matter for the House.

Earl Winterton: When we have this discussion on the Prime Minister's statement, supposing those vitally interested in the matter of flying bombs—some of our constituencies have been affected and constituents have suffered casualties—desire to take part in the Debate, and catch Mr. Speaker's eye, will they be permitted to do so in reference to that matter, or will the House go into Secret Session?

Mr. Eden: I would like a moment to consider that problem, but a meeting is to be held next week, on Tuesday or Thursday, and I think we might discuss the matter then, through the usual channels.

Mr. Shinwell: Regarding the date of the Adjournment, while everybody hopes that the position in London will improve, if it does not would it not be improper for this House to adjourn? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]. There seems to be some confusion, so I will put the point again. If the position, unfortunately, should worsen in London, as regards bombing, and if difficulties should arise about evacuation and the like, would it not be regarded as improper if hon. Members left this place for the provinces, without having an opportunity of discussing matters which are of vital concern to many of our people?

Mr. Eden: I think the position is quite clear. This Adjournment is the normal Parliamentary procedure at this time of the year, and I do not think we should vary our normal procedure, unless there is a special reason—which does not at present exist—for the summoning of Parliament. There will be opportunities for contact with the Ministers responsible, who will be carrying on their daily duties.

Mr. Shinwell: Then I beg to give notice that on the date when the Adjournment is moved, if circumstances justify it, I shall move an Amendment.

Mr. Hynd: Do the Government propose to give the House an early opportunity of discussing a recent statement on the constitution and future of the Court of International Justice?

Mr. Eden: I shall have to look into that.

Earl Winterton: I desire to raise a question, Mr. Speaker, affecting a matter of Order. I desire to put it to you to-day,


or, if it is more convenient, to put it to you to-morrow, when I have submitted the point in writing. It is a question affecting the Privilege of this House in regard to the holding of conferences, or meetings, upstairs and how the question of secrecy would arise. If it is your wish, Mr. Speaker, I will submit the question to you and put it to-morrow. I desire to raise a further point of Order in connection with the same matter. I think it is an unusual, if not unprecedented, procedure, of which I make no complaint, that my right hon. Friend should have announced to the House a form of proceeding which is not provided for under the Rules of Order, and I would like to know whether it would be in Order to put a Private Notice Question to the Leader of the House to-morrow, regarding the procedure of these conferences or meetings, whatever one likes to call them, upstairs. In submitting this point of Order, I would rely upon the manner in which you, Mr. Speaker, and your predecessors in the Chair, have always allowed a minority in this House to endeavour to express their views. We realise that we are a small and unpopular minority in demanding a Debate on this matter, and we no longer persist in that, but we hope we may be permitted to have the opportunity of putting our views at a meeting upstairs, and we can only do that if we know what the procedure is to be.

Sir P. Harris: Is there any constitutional reason why Members should not meet Ministers in private conference? Has it not been the custom from time immemorial that they should have that right and that it can be stated from the Treasury Bench?

Mr. Speaker: I think it is better not to discuss the matter now, but if the Noble Lord, as he kindly suggests, will put the matter to me in writing I will do my best to give a Ruling on it to-morrow.

Earl Winterton: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether you will allow—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, really, are hon. Members whose constituents have been killed by flying bombs not allowed to ask questions in the House? Is that the situation? If so, I will give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment to-day. Will you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to submit a Private Notice Question to the Leader of the House to-morrow regarding

the procedure to be followed upstairs, in view of the rather unprecedented situation, namely, that this has been stated by the Government as a new form of convenient procedure?

Mr. Speaker: I think the Noble Lord is quite entitled to submit such a Question to me. If he does so I should be glad to look into it.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS

That they have passed a Bill, intituled "An Act to validate agreements purporting to create tenancies for periods depending on the duration of the war and certain other events; to provide for the construction of such agreements and other tenancy agreements; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid." Validation of War-time Leases Bill [Lords.]

VALIDATION OF WAR-TIME LEASES BILL [Lords]

Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed [Bill 40].

NEW MEMBER SWORN

Frederick William Cundiff, Esq., for the Borough of Manchester (Rusholme Division).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, a Supplementary Estimate for a New Service may be considered in Committee of Supply."—[Mr. Eden.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[18TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1944

COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Colonial Administration, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945, namely:


Class II., Vote 7, Colonial Office
£10


Class II., Vote 8, Colonial and Middle Eastern Services
£10


Class II., Vote 8, Colonial and Middle Eastern Services (Supplementary sum)
£10


Class II., Vote 9, Development and Welfare (Colonies, etc.)
£10



£40."

Mr. Sorensen: On a point of Order. Can you let us know, Major Milner, how much time approximately will be taken by the consideration of the Private Bills for which this Debate is to be interrupted later in the day? Will those Bills take the rest of the time of the Sitting, or will there be time afterwards for us to return to the subject of Colonial administration?

The Chairman: That is not a matter for this Committee but one entirely for the House, and I aim afraid I cannot take up the role of a prophet. I certainly hope it will be possible to return to Committee of Supply.

Mr. Riley: This is the second day's Debate upon the statement made by the Colonial Secretary on the

administration of the Colonial Office, and I want to associate myself with those hon. Members who, on the first day, congratulated the right hon. and gallant Gentleman upon his cogent and informative speech. I am, however, not so much concerned with offering congratulations, though they are quite sincere. I am principally concerned to offer some comments upon the statement which the Colonial Secretary then made about the machinery which he has now put into operation to carry out the great obligations imposed upon his Ministry by the Welfare and Development Act, 1940. I want also to make two suggestions which I think may be regarded as constructive and to ask for their consideration by the Minister and by the Committee. The only question which I have in mind is whether the machinery which the Minister described to us on 6th June as now being in operation to accomplish the great task before him is adequate for the purpose or is the best that could be devised.
It is pertinent to remind hon. Members, briefly, what that machinery is. On 6th June, the right hon. Gentleman said that he had done, or was doing, three things to meet the tremendous problems which the Colonial situation presents. He said that he had set up local Development Committees in each of the principal Colonies and that these Committees were working under their respective Colonial Governments and were responsible for planning and for carrying through the plans with such assistance as might be available under the Act of 1940. Secondly, he said the plans of these Committees must be comprehensive, long-term plans covering the whole of the development of the respective Colonies, and not mere proposals for a new hospital here or a new road there. Thirdly, he referred to the part to be played by the Colonial Office, and in that connection, in order to meet the difficulties of planning, he is trying to provide experts to assist and advise him. In pursuance of that policy he has set up in London nine Colonial Advisory Committees to report to him upon such matters as he may from time to time refer to them. I think the Minister will agree that that is a fair, if brief, summary of what he said regarding the machinery he has devised in order to deal with what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) described in the first day's Debate as the


abysmal levels of existence on which large numbers of peoples are condemned to live in great areas of the Empire."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1944; Vol. 400, c. 1250.]
Before commenting on this machinery, I would draw attention to the composition of these Advisory Committees upon which the Minister is largely relying to provide him with the expert information upon which long-term planning can be based. I do so, not because I call in question in the slightest degree the qualifications or the merits of those who compose these Committees. I believe they are doing excellent and valuable work, but the composition of the Committees is typical of the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman to Parliament and to Members of Parliament in connection with his Colonial administration. I am not saying that the right hon. Gentleman deliberately ignores Parliament and Members of Parliament, but only pointing out that he fails to enlist the active participation of Members of Parliament in the immense task of trying to set our Colonial house in order.
What are the facts of the case with regard to these nine Advisory Committees? I recently put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman on the number of these Committees, their personnel, their terms of reference and so on, and he obligingly sent me a detailed statement upon all of them. These nine Committees comprise no less than 118 persons, and of those only four are members of the House of Commons.

Mr. de Rothschild: Who are they?

Mr. Riley: Is it necessary to say? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I will mention them if it is desired. First, there is my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, who is a member of the Colonial Advisory Committee upon Education. Then there is my hon. Friend the Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen), who is one of two Members of Parliament upon a useful but not very important committee to look into the interests and welfare of Colonial peoples, mostly students, who happen to reside in this country. There is no economic reconstruction about their work; they are a welfare committee. The other Member upon that Committee is an hon. Member for one of the Universities. The fourth Member of Parliament is an hon. Member, a distinguished professor, who is

a member of the Advisory Committee on Colonial Research. Those are the four Members of Parliament among the 118 members of those Committees. The rest are all very distinguished men—scientists, officials of the Colonial Office, economists, and so forth—and I make no criticism upon their qualifications. I am satisfied that they are doing valuable work, but they are all busy men, and the most the right hon. Gentleman can get out of them is the odd hours which they, busy men, with many calls upon their time and energies, can spare for this Advisory Committee work.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): Is the hon. Member now drawing a distinction between busy men, on the one side, and Members of Parliament on the other?

Mr. Riley: My distinction is this. Why should 114 men who are not Members of this House—all of them very busy men—serve on these advisory committees, while Members of Parliament, who sit here and give their time and attention to home affairs and Colonial affairs, are not invited? Why cannot the Minister enlist a much larger proportion of the Members of this House, who are competent, to serve on these advisory committees? On six of these committees there is not a Member of Parliament. There are three committees on which there are four Members of Parliament. One of the committees on which there is no Member of Parliament is called the Labour Advisory Committee, which advises the Minister on the labour policies and labour developments and improvements in the Colonies. Many Members, on both sides of the House, are interested in labour conditions and have a wide knowledge of that subject, but they are not invited to serve. When I asked the other day why there was no Member of Parliament on that committee, the reply of the Minister was that he had followed the usual practice of consulting the British Employers' Federation, on the one hand, and the Trades Union Council on the other. As Parliament is the authority concerned, why should its Members not be invited? The British Employers' Federation and the T.U.C. are not responsible for administering our Colonial affairs. This Parliament is. I put it to the Minister that he should recognise that it is to the advantage of his own work, as well as that of the Colonial


subjects, that Members of Parliament should be associated with planning and thinking out means of improved conditions in the Colonies.

Sir Granville Gibson: May I ask my hon. Friend a question? Is it not possible that the British Employers' Federation and the T.U.C. may recommend men who know something about Colonial affairs, men who have been to the Colonies? On the other hand, it is known that only a small percentage of Members of Parliament have visited the Colonies.

Mr. Riley: No doubt those bodies do recommend very suitable men, but surely my hon. Friend does not want to suggest that there are not men on both sides of this Committee with the necessary qualifications, interests and experience although, perhaps, not in large numbers. Unfortunately, it is true that many of us lack the opportunity of acquainting ourselves at first hand with Colonial conditions, but, nevertheless, there are Members with experience. Take the most important committee—the Economic Advisory Committee—with its 18 members. We all realise that economic conditions must be the foundation of any advance in our Colonies. It is fundamental to any kind of permanent improvement and the prevention of the recurrence of the misery that has prevailed in our Colonies that economic standards should be improved. Does anyone suggest that Members of Parliament are not prepared to take part in that work which properly belongs to them? I suggest that the Minister should take steps—and I hope that pressure will be brought to bear upon him to do so—to see that, in future, a fair proportion of Members of Parliament serve on these committees. I am perfectly certain that it is of the highest importance that a larger number of Members of Parliament should have an opportunity of acquainting themselves with Colonial conditions, and should stimulate Parliament in the work which it has to do.
That is the main point I have to make with regard to the committees—the absence of Members of Parliament and the preponderance of outsiders. I suggest that experience is making it very clear that, over and above these advisory committees, there will have to be, if any progress of a substantial character is to

be made, a more suitable machine. I suggest to the Minister that he should consider whether this Economic Advisory Committee, which, I have emphasised, is fundamental to any progress and necessary in every step to bring our Colonial territories and their inhabitants to something like a decent level, should not be an authority—not voluntary people giving an hour or two here and there—charged specifically with the duty, under the direction of the Minister of course, of investigating and carrying through necessary and important schemes of economic improvement.
The "Manchester Guardian," in commenting on the Debate of 6th June in a leading article, said that the Colonial situation and conditions correspond to-day to the industrial conditions which prevailed in this country 100 years ago. In other words, we are 100 years behind the times in our Colonial field of work. The House of Commons, when it passed the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940, deliberately committed itself to recognising that our Colonial fellow-subjects are entitled to economic, social and political standards which will bear comparison with those on which we insist for our own people. The right hon. Gentleman has advisory committees of a voluntary character which, I say, are not sufficient and will not do. What I want to see on the economic side is an authority vested, under the Minister, with executive powers to get on with the job.

Colonel Stanley: When the hon. Member said "vested with executive powers," did he mean powers to override Colonial Governments and Legislatures?

Mr. Riley: Certainly not. I was going to add that the authority should work under the direction of the Minister. I quite agree with the point which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman stressed in his speech on 6th June about the unwisdom of trying to impose things on our respective Colonies. That is not the line of policy to pursue.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend seems to acquiesce in the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's suggestion that we should not override Colonial Governments in any particular, but suppose that expansion and development are desirable


in our judgment, and that some Colonial Governments stand in the way. What are we to do then?

Mr. Riley: I take it that we should not wish to impose any line of policy or development against the declared wishes of the great mass of the people. We should have to use our persuasion to get their consent. I think my hon. Friend's intervention is somewhat far-fetched. It is inconceivable to me that any Colony would object to being assisted to develop its territories, and to raise its standard of living.

Dr. Morgan: I think the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) put a very good point. Are we to allow the people of the Barbados, the Bahamas and Bermuda to remain under an oligarchy imposed from the top, with a Constitution 200 years old, unreformed, and the bulk of the inhabitants without a vote, without a say, and without any power?

Mr. Riley: My hon. Friend is ignoring the fact that there is no intention, as I understand it, that either Barbados or any other of our Colonies should remain under any system of political rule which is not progressive or equitable and that, moreover, it is the declared policy and intention of Parliament not to go backwards and impose unrepresentative government, but to proceed gradually to self-government, from stage to stage.
I now come to the main point, whether the machinery which the right hon. Gentleman has assembled is going to do the job in a reasonable space of time and bring about a substantial change in the economic and social standards of the people. It will be far better done if, in place of the Economic Advisory Committee, simply reporting to the Minister upon such matters as he refers to them—[Interruption.] The terms of reference are:
To advise the Secretary of State on such questions of economic policy in relation to Colonial questions as he may refer to the Committee.

Hon. Members: And to initiate.

Mr. Riley: It does not say so in the teens of reference. It says "including matters arising on programmes of economic development," but again that is qualified by "on such questions as the

Secretary of State may refer to them." I want to emphasise the importance of considering the absolute necessity, if this job which the Minister has in charge is to be done in a reasonable period of time, of getting some qualified central body, such as a Colonial Development Authority, at work to carry out the intentions and desires of Parliament with regard to the improvement of Colonial conditions. I am strengthened in that view by what has taken place in the West Indies and in Africa. Under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act we vote a maximum of £5,000,000 a year. Four years had gone by the end of March, and the total that might have been utilised was £20,000,000. As a matter of fact, what has been actually spent is £2,169,000, of which £1,246,000 was spent on improvements in the West Indies. In the West Indies we have something analagous to a Colonial Development Authority. We established the Stockdale Commission with a very big staff of qualified men, who were not coming for an hour or two now and again, but have been at work with a large staff for four years. It is true the Stockdale Commission is always subject to the authority of the Minister, and that is right. We have been able to do work in those four years with the Stockdale Commission in various directions equivalent to 2s. per head per annum of the inhabitants.
In Africa we have a Colonial population of 50,000,000, and in the West Indies less than 3,000,000. In four years, under the Colonial Welfare Act there ought to have been available in Africa approximately £16,000,000. By 31st March this year, we had spent just over £900,000, equal to barely a penny per head per annum. Why should we not have had either a central Colonial development authority or a commission in West and East Africa working for the last four years? I think a sound line to take would have been to get such an organisation as the Central Colonial Development Authority, under the Minister, working of course in liaison with the Colonial Development Committee themselves, but at the same time devoting their time, with adequate finances at their disposal, to developing the economic advancement of the Colonies in a reasonable time. What would our Russian Allies have done? One thinks of what they have done in ten or fifteen


years with vast territories and peoples, many of whom were in as backward a condition as our Colonial subjects. President Roosevelt carried through the Tennessee Valley scheme on a huge scale not by employing an advisory commitee, but by giving authority and power to qualified people whose special duty was to see that the job was done.
I do not understand why the Minister is so unsympathetic to the idea of enlisting, in order to assist him in this work, such help as can be got from Members of Parliament and in the next place so careful to retain in his own hands, the supervision of all the details of the enormous task which 50 territories with 60,000,000 people present to him. We have 45,000,000 people in our own country and it takes us all our time to attend to them. Under the present system of machinery, the Minister is trying to do the same work in 50 territories. For similar work in this country it requires a Parliament of 600 Members. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is trying to perform himself the work that is done here by six or seven Ministries—Health, Education, Transport, Economic Warfare and so on. It is not possible to do it. He has to consider machinery which will give adequate power to qualified people engaged for the job, giving up all other commercial or professional obligations and becoming a body of servants of the State in carrying out this work. The proposal I now make is no new idea. The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) has raised a similar proposal on several occasions.

Captain Peter Macdonald: My suggestions were not found acceptable by the hon. Member's party.

Mr. Riley: Not in that form in which they were made. As I understood the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion, it was that there should be a development board or council, financed very largely by outside finance, whereas what I had in mind was a Colonial development authority, entirely under Government administration, with Government finance, responsible to the Government.

Captain Macdonald: As I understand it, the hon. Member is not going to encourage private enterprise in Colonial development at all.

Mr. Riley: That is not an issue which is germane. In this matter we have assumed

the obligation; Parliament has assumed it. Let the hon and gallant Gentleman remember that fact. The Minister knows it quite well. A new conception has come into existence in Colonial affairs in the last 20 years. Formerly we did not accept the responsibility for the economic, social and political progress and well-being of our Colonial peoples. We have accepted it now, and we have voted by Act of Parliament a first instalment of £5,000,000 a year. The Minister himself says that it is not enough, and everybody knows it is not enough, and that it will have to be increased. Why cannot the Minister divest himself of some of the detailed work? My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the, Isle of Wight made a pertinent remark in the Debate on 6th June, when he said:
I still think that the big decisions on policy, the administrative responsibilities and the wide range of subjects with which the Colonial Secretary has to deal, his duties in this House, his duty to visit the Colonies and be away for a period of time, do not allow him sufficient time to devote to this question of Colonial development. If it is to be done at all after this war, it must be done on a very large scale."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1944; vol.400, c. 1245.]
I entirely agree with that statement, and that is why I am urging upon the Minister that by the mere utilisation of advisory committees he will get very little further. If a move is to be made it will only be made by a properly equipped authority charged with powers to get on with the job. I urge that, in addition to a Colonial development authority, that the Minister should reconsider the question of appointing a standing committee of Members of Parliament to investigate and survey Colonial conditions in a regular systematic way, and to make contact between Parliament and Colonial problems. I know that, hitherto, the Minister has turned a deaf ear to this suggestion. Before the war broke out a half-undertaking was given by the late Neville Chamberlain when he was Prime Minister that such a committee would be considered sympathetically. It was hoped that in the course of a year or two something might be done, but the suggestion was not adopted. I believe that the establishment of a Parliamentary Colonial committee would bring a breath of fresh air into the relationships between the Colonial peoples and this Imperial Parliament. It would be a recognition that Parliament is alive to the problems that the Colonies have to face, and it


would be satisfactory for them to know that there was in existence a Parliamentary body which was taking cognisance of its problems.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: This is the second occasion on which we have had the opportunity of reviewing the affairs of the Colonial Empire, and I think we must all regret that Business is to be interrupted at an early hour. The very careful examination of the problems of administration that we have already had from my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) shows what great and general issues, as well as particular issues, there are to consider. My hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) raised a point of considerable constitutional importance in the midst of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury. I think it was a sign that the Committee would like to have an opportunity of discussing these administrative questions as well. It was, however, the hope of several hon. Members and myself that it might be possible to concentrate to-day, a little more on the affairs of one particular group of Colonies —the great West African group. However important in general the administrative changes that may be suggested, it is only in their application to particular problems that it is possible for us to see how they will work out.
The African Empire is sufficiently important to have an uninterrupted Session of the House of Commons devoted to its affairs. There are two African Empires—the West African and the East African. Each is of enormous extent and great population, and each is an Empire presenting immediate and clamant problems with which we are all well acquainted. If we attempt to discuss everything at once, it is clear that we shall never arrive at any coherent voice which we can give to the Minister. It is better that we should, as far as possible, take them group by group, and proffer our advice about them to the Minister, and make our comments about them. These Debates are read with great interest overseas, and it is difficult for the editor of a local paper to select matters about his own Colony from a discursive Debate, whereas he would value, with interest, the fact that this Committee had devoted a certain amount of consecutive attention to the problems with which he has to deal every day.

Dr. Morgan: There are problems of federation which are of general application to any Colony.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I would deny that in every detail. The problems of federation are utterly different in the West Indies and in West Africa. They are utterly different when you deal with great contiguous groups like the East African Empire, and again when you get to Malaya and the East Indies group. I am sure that if we attempt to apply one broad general principle in all these matters we shall find ourselves continually bogged when we try to get down to practical matters of detail.
On the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury of a central development fund, operated by a body with executive power, my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham put the question, Suppose that our co-operation with the Colonies were hindered by some hang-back on the part of a local government or governor, what would be the case then? The responsibility lies with the Colonial Secretary. He has the enormous constitutional responsibility of seeing that the Colonial Empire is properly administered, and great Colonial Secretaries have, on many occasions, initiated policies of development without much reference to certain local conditions and certainly without any consideration for advisory committes of this House. When Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was Colonial Secretary, he initiated policies in West Africa which were of great advantage to that country, and they were initiated from the sense of responsibility which the Minister had himself. As a former Minister, I look with a good deal of uneasiness on any interposition of some executive authority, ill-defined in scope, between the Minister and this House. I believe strongly that the further we get away from the responsibility of the Secretary of State, the weaker we make the authority of this House. Therefore, I very much hope that such a solution will be carefully looked at, all the more so because such solutions are looked at with great uneasiness by the Colonies.
Take the West African group alone of these great Colonial territories. After all, they have Legislatures of their own and they hope that more and more responsibility will be given to them. One of the great problems before us is the association


of the African with his own government. The fact that 118 members in this country, either officials or Members of Parliament, have been given an additional amount of executive authority over his affairs is not necessarily, in his mind, a move towards self-government.

Mr. Riley: From my argument, I made it clear that I did not visualise that such an authority would ride rough-shod over the local Colonial Governments, or usurp the authority of the Minister. I said that it would work under the direction of the Minister, and in association and co-operation with the local Colonial Government.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I have no fear of a committee riding rough-shod over anybody. That is not the way committees kill things. They kill them by the Chinese device of "death by a thousand cuts"— by an innumerable series of reports, resolutions, references and re-references, so that eventually, several years afterwards, you wonder what has happened to the project. The people of the Colonies who want action, are uneasy about the prospect of more committees before their representations can be acted upon by the Minister, or before the Minister's ideas can be acted upon.
The West African group of Colonies is big enough to be an entity in itself. Its enormous size, its unfamiliar aspect, both spiritual and physical, cause it to be widely divorced from the people of this country, and it is difficult to give advice about West African affairs when merely sitting in this island. A suggestion which was brought forward in the last Debate was that the resident Minister might, possibly, in the course of time, be replaced by an additional Parliamentary Under-Secretary who should sit there as chairman of a conference of Governors. That suggestion seemed to me to bring up the possibility of vigorous executive action at once, a possibility which is absent from some of the suggestions for committees which I have heard in these Debates.
Africa just now is not only a thing in itself; it is a thing in itself which is beginning to choose which way it will go. It has both Asia and Europe to choose from. Many African Colonies have great Mohammedan populations, and they are all subject to the influence of the East. The interesting thing is that West Africa turns more and more towards the West,

towards Europe, towards the Western world, and away from Asia. We may think that a little odd just now. We might think that the Western European record was not so startlingly constructive that people would desire to move towards it rather than towards Asia. Well, it is so. People desire to go where there is action. Whatever else we might say about Western Europe, we cannot deny that there is plenty of action there. They want to go there also, because they want an improvement in their economic conditions. They do not see that improvement coming from the Asiatic side. They want improvement in their own circumstances, in food, clothing and housing, and they do not see it coming from the connection with Asia. Therefore, they turn towards us as a source of ideas and of technical improvement, a source of machines as well as of ideas.
It may be said that that means the industrial revolution. It does. The industrial revolution is coming to the African and Asiatic populations, whether we like it or not. Those people are stretching out their hands towards this enormous new development, and the responsibility on us, of giving counsel, advice and guidance during that enormous change, is really terrific. Agriculture is their primary industry, but agriculture is not enough. The first time you see West Africa, your first impression is that it has got plenty of people, and your next impression is that it has very little else. That is not quite accurate. In some places, the population is scanty and in other places, like the Eastern provinces of Nigeria, there is a population as dense as 1,000 to the square mile, which is 640 acres. Imagine 1,000 people trying to live off 640 acres in this country; and that country suffers from a poor soil. In some of the West African dependencies, for instance, in Sierra Leone, the pressure of the agricultural population on the land is increasing. It may very well be nearly at the balancing point. The traditional method of manuring of allowing a long bush fallow in which the deep-rooted plants can bring up nutrient substances from the soil, is being cut down, and agricultural development is actually falling off. Crops are getting smaller, instead of bigger.
In West Africa, as in India, they desire the industrial revolution—an improvement


in their economic affairs. They desire to be allowed to handle the new machines. It is inevitable. Where a woman can make only 3s. 6d. by working hard for a whole week, it is not unnatural that she should desire some easier way of accumulating a few shillings. In a population such as the Eastern or African population, where perhaps half the population die before they are 22 years of age, it is not to be wondered at that they desire the industrial revolution, but, looking from afar off, they see only the good things of the industrial revolution. They do not see its dangers. Those are things in which it will be very necessary for us to help them. We have gone through all those experiences, and we have learned, at any rate, some lessons.
For all that, we must have a much more intimate association of the people with the government than before. A distant association is all right for a static relation. You must have a pretty close association for a dynamic relation. Anybody can look after a motor-car when it is standing still, but you require a pretty intelligent person to watch it while it is moving, and this motor-car is getting under way. This means a development of African thought which will, without any doubt, lead to an increase in African nationalism. I do not mean African nationalism as a whole; I mean the nationalism of different parts of Africa. They say that the other general word for "African" is "native" and each West African regards himself as belonging to a group of people who have clearly marked characteristics, and who are not to be mixed up in a general broth of "Africans." We can see what nationalism has done in Europe. That too, is a phase through which Africa will pass, and of its own desire and its own will, a phase in which the greatest attention will be necessary from this country. Nationalism is the really overpowering religion of our time and it will have just as strong an appeal in Africa as anywhere else. You do not find any desire for federation among West African colonies. They do not want to be federated together. They want, bitterly and anxiously, to pull apart, rather than to go together. How are we to deal with these things? Not, I think, simply on functional lines, and not on commercial lines.

Mr. Shinwell: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. and gallant Friend. I am trying to learn something about this subject. When he says that "they" do not desire federation and "they" are not prepared to accept this or that, whom does he actually mean by "they"? Does he mean the Africans, taking them by and large, or a few people more intelligent than the average and possessed of some authority?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: It is a fair question. It is quite true that nobody can dogmatise about 30,000,000 people. One can only speak about those with whom one has come into contact in one way or another. Certainly, those personal contacts are of the most elementary character, but I will say this: In so far as I, and I believe others who have had the opportunity of travelling there, or of meeting with Africans either in their own country or outside, are concerned, it appears that Africans, whether primitive or cultured, whether Northern, Southern, Eastern or Western, have as much a sense of individuality as have the different nations of Europe, and that they have no more desire to be mixed up in a general blend of Africans, than anybody in Europe has, in fact, less desire than anybody in Europe has.

Mr. Shinwell: I should have thought that the primitive native wanted certain essentials in food and shelter and had some idea, however primitive, about security; and that he did not trouble himself about federation, or independence or nationalism, but I may be wrong.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The theory of the economic man is an abstraction which has done great harm in Europe, and will, I think, do great harm in Africa. The African is very much like ourselves. If he has to deal with people he prefers those who speak his own language, eat his own food and, on the whole, share his own customs. He is no more anxious than we are to throw away those things simply for an increased amount of food, shelter or economic well-being. Very often he will adhere to those things in the teeth of his economic well-being, just as in Europe and even in Great Britain, we have found people adhering to the ways of their fathers, although it may have been demonstrated to them that they would make more


money in other directions. Not that I think that is necessarily a bad thing.
I believe we have to build on the foundation stones which are there. Take the one point of language. Co-operation among groups that speak the same language is very much easier than it is outside, with people who do not understand one word that you are saying. Therefore I say that in custom groups and in territory groups we shall see an increasing amount of nationalism in the future over what there was in the past.
One of our difficulties is the very small size of the units of government in Africa, the natural African units of government. Sierra Leone, for instance, is roughly the size of Eire, and it contains 221 sovereign States—a record, even compared with Ireland. The chiefdoms are, except for the British administration, practically independent. Roughly, that means that each independent State is a square, with 11 miles to each side. There is not a very great opportunity for developing high administrative qualities in those very small units. That is true of Sierra Leone, and things are not very different at the other end of West Africa, in the Eastern provinces of Nigeria, and even in the Northern province, where the density of population is less than half that in the South, and where the absence of the tsetse fly allows them the use of the horse. You still get relatively small divisions. There are 37 divisions, covering a population of 11,000,000 people in Northern Nigeria, and they are based on the old African units. They are on the average something like a square with a side of 90 miles. That is quite a small field in which to develop the administrative power which is necessary, but which must be made to increase, if we are to lead these teritories into the higher economic state which we all desire.
While the African is uneasy about political associations, he is actively suspicious about the commercial organisations with which he comes into contact, and the bigger they are, the more uneasy he feels about them. He has a much better chance of getting on to the Legislature, the political direction, of his own country, than he has of getting, on to the board of directors of one of the great companies—the Elder Dempster Line, United Africa, or Unilevers, or any other

great body with which his economic future is so closely bound up.

Mr. Sorensen: The same is true here.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I have seen people get on to boards of directors from both sides of this Committee, to go no further, and I have seen a director of the Bank of England arise from a leader of the miners' union. I have not seen any phenomenon like that take place in West Africa.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. and gallant Member does not say in which direction he went.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I do not say whether he went forward or backwards, but I have certainly seen him move from one position to the other. Sierra Leone is the size of Eire, but the Gold Coast is the size of the United Kingdom, while Nigeria is four times the size of England and Wales. Their populations add up to some 20,000,000 or 30,000,000, a figure certainly higher and greater than the population of Canada, plus the populations of Australia and New Zealand—in that one group.
The difficulty of getting the 20th century to these people means that they must have instruction, training and education. It is said by some people that it is useless to consider problems of higher education until there has been a great increase in elementary and secondary education. These matters are being considered just now by a Commission of which I have the honour to be Chairman, and therefore it would be quite wrong for me to make any statement about it at all, save to say that all are agreed that the vicious circle must be broken somewhere, and that the necessity for making an advance is one of the immediate and urgent problems before us. Whether it can wait until the whole of West Africa has had an adequate elementary education is a very doubtful matter. It certainly is not the way Europe made its progress. Progress in Europe, its great achievements, were made long before every separate agricultural labourer's child in England, France or Germany had had an adequate elementary education.
Accusations are repeatedly made against the power of the Africans to absorb and profit by education. In that connection


it is interesting to read a recent report on medical education which contained the following passages:
We are agreed that quite apart from lack of character and ability that may be avoided by improved recruitment and selection, the average medical graduate has defects which are to be attributed chiefly to the manner of his training. He tends to lack curiosity and initiative; his powers of observation are relatively undeveloped, his ability to arrange and interpret facts is poor; he lacks precision in the use of words. In short, his training, however, satisfactory it may have been in the technical sense, has been unsatisfactory as an education … It is not uncommon for a boy to spend nearly all his time working at a limited group of subjects, and thus on the classical side to leave school entirely ignorant of natural science and on the science side to have no mastery of English … the fault lies in the pressure exerted by boys and their parents to specialise in subjects in which examination success opens the gate to material prosperity …
These remarks are not drawn from any report on the students of West Africa but are drawn from the report of the Medical Committee of the Royal College of Physicians presided over by Lord Moran, and reporting on British students. It is the verdict of teachers of all ages as to the unsatisfactory nature of the student.
The problem of education in subjects where the West is predominant is difficult enough. It is, I think, still more difficult in the case of African subjects such as agriculture. It is mainly a peasant agriculture in Africa, but anyone who sets about teaching the peasant agriculture will generally find that the simplest way to realise why a peasant is doing a thing, is to try to do something else. It is all the more dangerous when the African economy is changing over towards an export trade. The flow of foodstuffs oversea raises problems in the exporting country which we are only beginning to realise. It is selling the country. Quite apart from the dangers to the agricultural system by a change-over to unfamiliar techniques, of which the American dustbowl is perhaps one of the most vivid illustrations, there is what one might call a hidden soil erosion not less dangerous than the tearing off of the top-soil of the country by flood waters and throwing it down rivers. I quote from the report of two scientists on crop production and soil fertility problems in West Africa, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Crowther. The said

it must be remembered that the products with most phosphorus—the grains and seeds of cotton and groundnut—are either consumed as human food or exported. The balance cannot be maintained unless additional phosphate is brought in from elsewhere, either as litter and fodder from bush or pastures outside the farm, or as fertilizers … Much of the phosphorus from the Nigerian farms finds it way back to the soil on British farms, and not on Nigerian ones … In the 1930's British farmers bought in imported feeding stuffs far more nitrogen than in fertilisers, and as much phosphate and potash as in the whole of their superphosphate and potassic fertilisers.
That is a danger which we are only beginning to realise.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Can we get this thing right? The Japanese had just the same problem in Manchuria with soya beans. What did they do? They crushed the seed, exported the oil and used the cake or meal on the land—that was one means of getting protein and phosphatides back on the land. Could not the African do just the same thing? We are exporting the whole seed from Africa.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: My hon. Friend is a great expert on African oil products. I would not like to say what the remedy for this is. A remedy for getting the stuff back on the land is the use of stock, but that is very difficult in a country where, owing to insect pests, ordinary cattle are practically unknown. There is another way of dealing with it. The substance can be exported, and what has been taken out can be replaced in the form of fertilisers of the soil. The export is taking place now and the fertilisers are not being added to the soil.
In addition to the soil erosion which is one of the great problems of Africa, there is thus also an invisible erosion whereby important elements such as phosphoros are being exported, and are not being replaced. That seems to me, in its turn, to point to the great desirability of associating ourselves closely with the people of the land on the basis of theory and practice, which is the motto of the great English agricultural societies, and which I think will need to be the motto of those who are bringing the new techniques to the native African population.
A certain humility will not be out of place in our approach to these people. I have heard it said by African friends of mine that to read the ordinary history


books one would think that Africans had never done anything towards the development of Africa, and that it did not really begin until the Europeans arrived. They, naturally, feel a certain sense of injustice about that. After all, they have been there a long time, and they have a good deal of history which they in their turn think has had something to do with the development of their country. I think the arrogance of the Western world in dealing with primitive populations is undoubtedly one of the things of which we shall have to divest ourselves. There are long traditions in those countries which it is necessary for us to take carefully into account. There, too, it seems to me, the line points most clearly towards a sufficient amount of education both on their part and ours to enable us to come closer together and understand each what the other one says.
It is impossible in the short space of time we have at our disposal to-day to do more than touch on some of the problems which will particularly affect this House in its relations with the great West African group of Colonies. I can only say that having had the opportunity more than once of visiting these great areas, I am more and more impressed with the enormous potentialities, both of good and of evil, which lie in the coming of the knowledge of the West to these peoples. I am sure we shall require to devote an increasing amount of attention to them in the near future, because the speed of everything has so enormously increased in these days that a slight error of direction in the steering, which would be negligible if one were going at five miles an hour, may, when the world is going at 50, 60 or 80 miles an hour, hurl the whole vehicle into the ditch and wreck it for good. Our close attention in this House as a whole, not through a committee of expert Members, and not through a committee of expert bureaucrats, will be more than ever necessary in the years to come. I hope very much that, even this Session, it will be possible for us still to have further opportunities of examining these great problems.

Mr. de Rothschild: Both the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman who have addressed this Committee to-day devoted some attention to the question that has often been raised in this House at the instigation of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the

Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald), namely, that of setting up a Committee of this House to sit separately and Look into Colonial matters.

Captain P. Macdonald: I never advocated such a committee at all. I advocated a Standing Committee.

Mr. de Rothschild: Well, a Standing Committee on which this House would be represented by a number of Members, to look into Colonial matters. I entirely share the view of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) inasmuch as I think that to set up any such kind of committee, which would, so to say, put the Minister himself into commission, could not help in any way in the conduct of Colonial affairs. Moreover, I think this system of having outside commissions or bodies with more or less executive powers is one which in other countries has been conducive to disrupting the Parliamentary system, and I hope that it will not be adopted here. An idea that I have put forward before and which I think is constructive, is that there should be an advisory committee called to this country with representatives from the Colonies themselves, elected or chosen as the case may be, according to the development of those Colonies, who would sit here in London and debate either in public or private the affairs of the Colonial Empire in general, and who at their private sittings would be able to invite all the Members of both Houses of Parliament who are interested in Colonial affairs.
Time is short and I should like shortly to address myself more particularly to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. When I addressed a few remarks to him a month ago he accused me in his courteous reply of acidity. I must say that hurt me a great deal. I consider myself to be a very mild man, and I am very sorry if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman detected any acidity in my remarks. I can only put it down to his own political stomach, and I hope he will be able to absorb enough pepsin during the course of this Debate to find at the end of it that my remarks to-day have not been so acid.
The last Debate took place on a very fortunate date for this country, though it was possibly, in some ways, an unfortunate one for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. It may have been a good omen for the Colonial Secretary's plans


that the development of the Colonies was discussed on such an ample scale on the day of our first landing in Normandy on a mission of liberation.
In his speech on that occasion the right hon. and gallant Gentleman very fully described the machinery he has set up for the development of the Colonies. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) has devoted the greater part of his speech to discussing those proposals. He has discussed the method and the machinery which would be applied, and he has advocated that some Members of Parliament should be included on these Commissions. On the other hand, I should like to congratulate the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on including Members of Parliament, as he has done, on a few of them already, because I know that formerly members of these Committees have been discouraged, when they have become members of Parliament, from continuing on those committees. The hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster), I believe, was a member of the Colonial Loans Advisory Committee, and when he became a Member of this House it was intimated to him, I believe, that he had better resign his function on it. The Colonial Office seems to have changed its method and I am glad to see that a few Members of Parliament have been appointed to these Committees. Perhaps I might congratulate the party above the Gangway that two of their own Members have been appointed to these Committees. When the Minister, in his last speech, described this machinery, he gave us great hopes. He described it in a very general manner, and did not tell us how soon the results of the deliberations of these Committees would be made public, and how soon they could be put into practice.
The most burning topic at present is demobilisation. Plans for providing employment for the demobilised will be needed as soon as the war ends, and we have often been told that the war may end sooner than we expected. I agree that, as regards demobilisation for the Colonials serving in the Forces, the urgency may not be so great as it is for members of the European and American Forces, because they will be serving, no doubt, in the war against Japan, where they are at present doing doughty service. That will give the Minister a little more time. Still, he has spoken of hundreds

of thousands of Colonial members of the Forces. Will the machinery produce the plans to cope with this in time?
As regards our own country, the Government claim that reorganisation plans are well advanced. We are now discussing in Parliament the acquisition of land for houses, and the President of the Board of Trade, a few weeks ago, outlined a scheme for the location of industry. We all hope that these plans, ample or meagre as they may be, will come into operation soon after the war, and that they will create occupation for the Homeland. Will the Colonies also have their plans ready? As regards demobilisation, there is no doubt that the Colonial Secretary will have, on the whole, an easier task, because development in the Colonies will have to begin from the ground up. The material background of civilised life must be established in the Colonies. This country has been living and developing for the last 2,000 years against a background of civilisation. The Romans built roads in this country 2,000 years ago, but 100 years ago there were no roads in the African Colonies, and to-day there are not many. There are very few communications of any kind—railways, roads, bridges. It is not surprising that the "Manchester Guardian" was able to say that, in social conditions, the Colonies, especially Africa, were 100 years behind this country. It is only surprising that they are not more than 100 years behind. That is to the credit of the Colonial Power and of the Colonists themselves. The need for this basic development applies more especially to the African territories. The Malayan problem is of a different kind. There, of course, much basic work remains to be done; but we shall have to deal there with a problem akin to the problem of the devastated countries, which we are liberating at present, in Europe. Like the ravaged countries of Europe, the ravaged country of Malaya will have to be rehabilitated: but, obviously, precise plans cannot be made at present.
I hope that the Minister will not think of the demobilisation problem simply as one of finding jobs for idle hands. He will have at his disposal superb human material, such as has never been available in the Colonies before, and I trust that he will use it to the best advantage, to carry out the work which is so much needed. The quality of this material is


quite a new thing. The finest of the young Colonials have gone into the Forces. They have seen other countries, they have mixed with people of other lands, they have acquired education and technical training. It is to the credit of the War Office, and of the manner in which these young Colonials have been commanded by their officers, that they have attained such a degree of efficiency and education. They have attained in war-time a degree of efficiency and education which in peace-time the Colonial Office had not been able to give them. The Colonial Photographic Exhibition, which was possibly a paltry affair, was still very interesting, and it showed natives of the Colonies in all the different walks of military life. Nobody could have failed to be thrilled and inspired by seeing all the many occupations which these men have filled. It gave me great satisfaction, in particular, to see the picture of a young man from British Honduras, dressed in the uniform of an Air Force sergeant, who was acting as a navigator, the most difficult, the most highly skilled and technical trade in the Air Force. Besides the men in the Forces, the Minister will also have at his disposal many men who have learned technical jobs and who have displayed skill in the Government workshops which have been set up in the Colonies to fulfil military needs. I hope that his plans will give full play to this magnificent human material. It will certainly give Colonial development a great impetus.
The Colonial Secretary spoke of coordinating development within the Colonies by regional schemes. I was bold enough to interrupt, and to ask whether the colonies of other nations would be included as well in the regional arrangements. He answered that that would came out in the wash. So far as I am concerned, the wash is still in the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's basket.

Colonel Stanley: Did I use that expression?

Mr. de Rothschild: I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did use that expression. I took particular notice of it. I was particularly glad to see that he indicated that, so far as our British Colonies are concerned, the largest regional arrangements would be made,

that there would be no overlapping of industries, and that they would all be helped to find a place where they were needed and where they would be useful. The Colonial Secretary said on that occasion that we must make certain that a Colony with a more active driving force at its head was not going farther ahead than one which was more supine. I sincerely hope that this was merely a lapsus linguae. I trust that the pace will not be that of the slowest, the most retrograde, the least developed, but that of the most active, with the keenest and most enlightened Governors. I know that there may be physical difficulties, but there should not be a slowing down of those which are doing well, but a hastening up of those which are not doing so well as yet.
The co-ordination of development, which was adumbrated and described by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, involved the question of the location of industry. The importance of this was clearly shown in the Debate concerning the location of industry in our own country. The President of the Board of Trade then gave us an example. He pointed out that the Severn needed a new bridge below Gloucester, in order to solve communication problems with South Wales, and he added that the construction of this bridge was part of a plan to weave all our industries into a national pattern. The same identical problem—on a different scale, it is true, and of a different nature—arises in the Colonies. I hope that the Colonial Secretary will see that the Colonial industries also are woven into a general Colonial pattern, fully integrated with the groundwork of any plan of Colonial development.
Several times the Colonial Secretary and his predecessors have foreshadowed the development of secondary industries in our Colonies, but we have been given very few details. We have heard little about it so far, but gradually information is seeping out about what is taking place in industrial development, in West Africa in particular. For instance, I have been given to understand that a scheme for the manufacture of cocoa butter was started in the Gold Coast. Now this scheme, which was taken up only a year or 18 months ago, has been abandoned. I gather that this is because the equip-


ment was inefficient. The Governor of the Gold Coast made this quite clear, in a statement that he made in the Colony he so ably administers. I hope that local industries are not going to be discouraged in Africa because their equipment is inefficient, and the development transferred to this country. Our remedy should be to equip those industries as quickly as we can and to make it possible for them to process what they grow in their countries. The cocoa butter should be processed in Africa, under the best conditions, with the best machinery, and with the best equipment. That is the duty of this country to the Colonies; not to draw from the Colonies their natural products and to process them in this country, even if it is cheaper to do it here at present. Every encouragement should be given to the Colonies to improve their material and their equipment. We also hear that other industries have been started in West Africa—fish curing, the preparation of hides for tanning, starch production, and soap making. I see that the Minister has an able substitute sitting on the Front Bench at present, and I hope that he will give us some information about these industries. The House is anxious to have details, not only general information. We want to know whether these industries are to be part of a unified plan for the development of West Africa, and what chance they have of progressing.
But the most important industry in the Colonies must remain agriculture. The Minister himself has emphasised that. Here, again, we might take an example for the Colonies from the way in which we administer our own affairs in this country. Here the Minister of Agriculture has announced a four-year plan for agriculture. Has the Colonial Secretary a four-year plan for the agriculture of the Colonies? What, for instance, is to happen to the agriculturists of East Africa? What is to happen to the sisal growers? The Minister, in his speech last month, said he had been forced to put great pressure on the sisal growers to expand the output in order to replace manila hemp for the sailors of the Allied Fleets. What is he going to do for the pyrethrum growers? Pyrethrum is essential, as the Minister explained to us, as an insecticide, which is more used in war time than in peace time. I do not say insecticides are

more necessary, but they are more used, and I hope the Minister will get in touch, for instance, with the people who are dealing with the liberated countries, where insecticides will be so necessary, and that he will see that these pyrethrum growers and the workers they employ are not thrown out of employment.
Of course, there will be other markets for this produce. There will be the liberated countries. But is the Minister taking this up with the other Government Departments? Is he taking it up with U.N.R.R.A. and with the Department of Overseas Trade? We must recognise our responsibility to the producers, to these pioneers in the Colonies and the men they employ. We have recognised our responsibility to the men in the Forces, and we must not neglect these also. Do not let us forget that, only a few months ago, a shiver went through the minefields of Rhodesia when the Colonial Office announced that they were reducing their purchases of copper, and the men feared that they would be thrown out of employment. These fears must not be realised.
I agree with the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley), and I trust that private enterprise will be given full scope. The Colonial Office could never provide all the necessary finance. Private enterprise can take more risks, and, therefore, embark on enterprises which a Government would leave untouched. I hope that, if commercial firms are encouraged to come in, they will also be able to make preliminary surveys of national resources. This is most essential. It is most valuable to them that they should be able to send men out to inspect and prospect and study the situation, but, better still, I suggest to the Minister that the Colonial Office should do this work for them. Sir Alan Pim, who is very well known in this House and is very well versed in Colonial matters, has pointed out the inadequacy of our information on these matters, and has said that a survey should have a high place in the order of priorities. I think that if a general survey, difficult as it is, of all the resources of the Colonial Empire was made, and the results were placed at the disposal of manufacturers and industrialists in this country, it would be of immense service, and I think the Colonial Secretary would earn the gratitude of the whole commercial and industrial community.
But if private enterprise is encouraged, there must be no slackening of the safeguards to prevent commercial firms gaining economic control, and I say this because we have in West Africa, not far from our own Colony, an example which I hope will not be followed in the British Empire. I am thinking of the position of the doubtfully-free Liberian Republic. There, the Firestone Company of America has established a strangle-hold. I am glad that, so far as West Africa is concerned, similar steps by commercial firms, on the scale on which the Firestone Company has put a strangle-hold upon Liberia, have constantly been resisted.
The Colonial Secretary has all the requisites of a successful plan and all the resources and human material to work it, but he will also have resources of inanimate material. The other day the Government published a plan for the disposal of its surplus stores, and I understand that this is to be discussed in this House next week. In this document, which is very exhaustive, the word "Colonies" never occurs, and yet what about the vehicles and machines of all kinds and the huge surplus stocks after the war? The interesting thing about the White Paper is that it states that no goods are to be considered surplus which may be required for any public purpose. I can imagine no better or more useful public purpose than the development of the Colonies, but there is not one word in the White Paper about that. I hope the Minister has not been asleep, but that he has put in his claim. The White Paper states that there are also those goods which can only be used in industry, and I gather that these are mainly going to industrial firms and are not to be disposed of for public purposes. I hope that this is not going to be the case, for these goods should be particularly useful in developing our Colonial industries.
The White Paper refers to a very gradual disposal of these surplus goods. I hope that, if some of them are to go to the Colonies, there will not be this gradual disposal, but that the Colonies will be able to make use of them as required by the purposes of Colonial development uninfluenced by the other considerations put forward in the White Paper. Much of this material will be required for the liberated territories, but Colonial development is a public purpose

of the first order, and I hope the Colonial Secretary will see to it that this purpose is not overlooked. I hope he will make full use of this opportuniity, as well as of his other great opportunities, and will satisfy the Committee on this point.

Captain Cobb: The Debate has lasted for two hours and only three hon. Members have addressed the Committee. One cannot help feeling that those three hon. Members who preceded me have not had a great deal of consideration for other hon. Members who wish to take part in the Debate. I hope to make my remarks as short as possible, so that other people, on this very restricted day, may have an opportunity of addressing the Committee. These Debates on Colonial affairs nowadays are confined almost entirely to future operations of the Colonial Welfare and Development Act and the way in which the Fund should be administered. It is about that, and about its effect on the Colonial Empire, that I wish to speak. Although the purpose of the Act is to effect a great measure of development in the Colonies, and although it will undobtedly have that effect, there is a very real danger that it may restrict development, and for this reason.
The Colonial Development Fund is limited to £5,000,000 a year for 10 years, and this may mean that the Colonial Secretary will find himself obliged to disapprove good and desirable schemes because the cost of those schemes would throw his programme for Colonial development out of balance. The Minister is bound to be influenced, not only by the balance of the scheme affecting other operations within the Colony itself, but also by the balance of programme for the whole of the Colonial Empire. To take an example, if some West African Colony put up a scheme for eradicating the mosquito and tsetse fly, which would take about 10 years to complete and would cost about £20,000 in its first year or two and rise to possibly £200,000, or something of that kind, during the last year or two, while it might be a perfectly feasible proposition to get that scheme started in the early days of the operation of the Development Fund, it would be very difficult in later years, when other schemes of that kind would have also increased their annual cost, for the Colonial Secretary to find it possible to sanction


these schemes on account of the enormous cost involved.
The Minister gave a reasonably satisfying assurance on the last occasion when we debated Colonial Affairs that we need not necessarily take it that that £5,000,000 was an absolute limit, but that there was a possibility that it could be increased. That is a very satisfactory assurance, so far as it goes, but one has to remember that the Colonies will not be, by any means, the only competitors for public expenditure. We are committed already to an immense financial post-war programme, and it will, I believe, be extremely difficult to find anything very much in excess of this £5,000,000 a year, to which we are committed. I hope that the House will show, in the post-war years, that it is as actively concerned about the welfare of Colonial subjects as it is about the welfare of the people of this country.
I want to raise the matter of the public debt in the Colonies, because I think the time has arrived when Colonial loans should be raised by the Treasury at the same rate of interest which Government loans carry. I understand it is a general thing for a Colony to pay as much as 5 per cent. on its loans, with the result that there are some Colonies which are paying approximately 25 per cent. of their total revenue in interest on their loans. There is no doubt at all that a great deal could be done by the Treasury to ease this very heavy burden on the individual Colonies.
We have had mention of self-government during the Debate. I hope that we are all clear about this; although we want to do everything we possibly can to encourage the native population of our Colonies so to educate and develop themselves that they may be able to govern themselves in due time, self-government of the Colonies must not involve any abdication of our own responsibilities. I place very high—in fact in the forefront of our responsibilities—the protection of the minority populations within the Colonies themselves. The Colonial Secretary informed us the other day that he is sending out a Commission in due course to Ceylon to inquire into the future Constitution of that Colony. That is a Colony where the minority question is a very active one and I certainly hope—and I am sure that we all do—that whatever

Constitution is evolved as a result of this Commission's inquiries, it will be a great deal more successful than was the case of the Donoughmore Commission, whose recommendations were accepted and have been so unfortunate in their effect.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) is a member of the Colonial Education Committee and has recently paid a visit to the West African Colonies. If I may say so without offence, I cannot help feeling that, judging by his last speech on Colonial affairs, that visit of his had a very considerable educational effect upon him, and I do not think there is any question that his journey was not only necessary but extremely beneficial. But if we are—as I hope we are—in the course of our development of the Colonies to improve and widen elementary educational facilities in our African Colonies, I hope that a great deal is going to be done to help our missionary schools. As in this country, so in the Colonies the Churches who have been the responsible pioneers in the work of education have done the job within their limited means extremely well, but they are not able, so I understand, to pay the kind of salaries to attract sufficient teachers or, in many cases, as good teachers as they would like. The best way in which we could develop our educational facilities in our native Colonies would be very largely to increase the financial aid which we give to the Church missions.
University education is bound to be of fairly slow growth but there is no reason, as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) said, why we should feel that we can do nothing in the sphere of university education until we have a completely literate and educated population. That does not follow at all. There is a certain amount of education of a university standard being carried on in the Gold Coast and Nigeria at this moment. I do not know what the recommendations of that Commission, of which my right hon. and gallant Friend was Chairman, and of which the hon. Member for Shipley was a member, are likely to be, but I hope that they may recommend that those faculties which exist now in Nigeria and in the Gold Coast may be increased where they are necessary so that they can in time form the nucleus of a full-blooded


university for the Colony itself. There is nothing of that kind, so I understand, in Sierra Leone. We would have to start with, I should imagine, one West African university, with faculties distributed throughout the three West African colonies and possibly, when the demand and need for university education becomes a great deal wider, those individual faculties could form the nucleus of a colonial university.

Mr. Creech Jones: On a small point of correction I would like to say that in Sierra Leone there is the Fourah Bay College and that some of the students of that College graduate from Durham University.

Captain Cobb: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for his information. I have not any doubt at all that it will prove to be a far more satisfactory business for the African student himself to have his university education in his own country rather than to come here, and that applies to the native of any non-European country. Nine times out of ten a period of residence as a student in this country is unsettling. The student goes back to his own country, very often finding it difficult to settle down, and I have not any doubt at all that we should be doing these students infinitely more good if we provided them with adequate university education in their own countries. I want to say a word about recruitment for the Colonial Service. I have no doubt that my right hon. and gallant Friend has this matter very closely in his mind. I am convinced that he will have no difficulty in finding all the really good, suitable recruits he wants. I found during my contacts with the Colonial Service in Africa that it always has attracted the first-class type of Englishman, and there can be no higher praise than that.

Mr. George Griffiths: There have been a few Welsh and Scottish as well as English.

Captain Cobb: When I talk about England, I always include the suburbs. We want not only to maintain that very high standard, but to increase the number of the personnel. I do not believe it is untrue to say that, for the most part, our Colonies are very much under-staffed where the Colonial service is concerned, and it is essential, especially in view of the immense increase in the responsibili-

ties and activities which will take place as a result of the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund, that we should very considerably increase the Colonial Civil Service staff.
I want to say, in conclusion, that we have heard on many occasions in these Colonial Debates of the wonderful military effort which the natives of our Colonies have contributed not only to this war but to the last war. I hope that we are going to say, when the war is over, that we are very conscious of the debt which we owe to these subjects of ours for their loyalty and gallantry in many a stricken field. There are a great number of them. They have served in Abyssinia and East Africa, and a considerable number of West African soldiers are now serving in Burma. I hope that when they come home they will come home to something which is really worth while. We are very conscious of the debt we owe to our own British men, and I hope we shall show in the years to come that we are able and willing to repay the very great debt which we owe to these splendid people in our Colonial Empire.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: I hope that I shall be excused if I do not follow the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb). Rather would I seek to limit myself in the short time at my disposal to putting a few points to the Colonial Secretary. I have taken an interest in Colonial affairs for a shorter time, probably, than many of those who may be participating in this Debate. I believe that I am only representative of the people throughout the country in so far as they are taking an increasing interest in Colonial matters. I feel that Parliament is taking an increasing interest in these affairs and I hope that the Press will be helpful to Parliament, to the people and to the Colonies in reflecting that increased interest in the affairs of the Colonies. But, with it all, our sources of information are far too limited. We have occasionally a Government White Paper and a report of a Commission, but there are no statistical surveys available to us, and we do not have the necessary information on commerce, trade and population to equip us properly to give the benefit of our counsel and advice to the Secretary of State.
I would ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether we could not have


a comprehensive survey of the Colonial Empire, backed by reports from the individual Colonies, at the earliest possible moment. As things are, it is far too difficult to follow the progress of development in the Colonies, though surely there is some progress and development. My hon. Friend who is at present representing the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the Front Bench will agree that even the Colonial Development and Welfare Reports deal only with the special schemes and that a broad picture is left out. Could we not have an annual report on the Colonial Empire relating the work of the Colonial Office and reviewing the progress made? I believe something very like this was done in the years immediately before the war and it is a great pity that war needs compelled the Colonial Office to forgo that practice. I sincerely trust that the Secretary of State will investigate the possibility of re-adopting that practice as soon as possible.
In the last Debate we had on these matters there was a very interesting speech from the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Astor), who dealt at length with affairs in Malaya. What concerned me was not so much that the hon. Member should make his observations on Malaya —although I did not agree with him—as that the Secretary of State, in reply, seemed to accept holus bolus everything that he had said. He said it was an admirable analysis of the situation. It seemed to me that the hon. Member had been advising the Government to get back to the whole set-up in Malaya at the earliest possible moment, and when the Secretary of State agreed so whole-heartedly with his speech, that appeared to me to be the policy of the Colonial Office. That was the only inference I could draw from the Secretary of State's reference to the speech.
It may be that there has been some unjustifiable criticism of our Colonial administration following on the fall of Singapore, but I would suggest in all seriousness that there is a lesson to be learned from the fall of Singapore and what has happened in Malaya in this war. I would suggest that the Government ought to be more closely associated with the people. Although there is a racial problem in Malaya, there is no purpose whatever in ignoring it. Although it is there, that

does not justify us in continuing as we were, and seeking to get back to the old organisation of government at the earliest possible moment. Having regard to these racial differences, an effort ought to be made to secure a community of interest. Why should not the Chinese, Indians and Malayans have that community of interest extended if at all possible, and surely it is possible? I am sure I speak for hon. Members on these benches when I say we will not condone the restoration of the old set-up, politically or economically, as if nothing at all had happened out there. We want some public control over economic development and the utilisation of natural resources. We want some welfare development and, above all, we want to see better conditions of labour.

Captain Gammans: I hope the hon. Member will excuse the interruption, but is he suggesting that there was no welfare development in Malaya? Does he realise that, in certain directions of social service, Malaya actually preceded this country?

Mr. Fraser: So far as my information on Malaya goes, the welfare services were not sufficient and, so far as I can gather, could do with some improvement. The conditions of labour could also be improved.

Captain Gammans: But does the hon. Member not think, before he gives this general criticism of Malaya, that he might at least inform himself as to what the social services were?

Mr. Fraser: I think I am on fairly sound ground in suggesting that there was something wrong in Malaya when it fell so very rapidly in this war, and it seems to me that the Government were not sufficiently closely associated with the people in Malaya. I am only suggesting that an effort should be made to associate ourselves more closely with the Malayan people, and that we should seek to extend the services there. I think I am justified in making those suggestions. It may be that my hon. and gallant Friend has access to information which I have not, and indeed——

Captain Gammans: I happen to have lived there.

Mr. Fraser: I said it was much too difficult for us to get information concerning the Colonies, but I am not prepared


to accept the inference that the social services in Malaya were indeed adequate.
I was saying that we do not want to return to the old set-up because that is what seemed to me to be accepted by the Secretary of State when he made his reply to the speech in the last Debate to which I have referred. I do not think we ought to hasten to put the Sultans back as if they were really indispensable to good government. I do not think they are, and I hope we shall all frown on an over-hasty return to the sort of government we had. That is an alternative point of view and I only put it because I believe it had to be put to-day. I hope the Secretary of State will pay some attention to it.
It seems to me that the Secretary of State ought to be able to make a statement one of these days as to the future of Hong Kong. As is known to everyone, this is a matter of concern in China, and has been the subject of comment in America. Apart from being a matter of concern in China and a matter of comment in America, surely it is something to which we in this country should pay some attention from time to time? I would submit that it is very doubtful if Hong Kong has any longer any strategic importance, but it is continuing to be a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese who want the integrity and full unity of their country and, I think, very naturally so. Some decision should be made concerning Hong Kong. At least the Secretary of State could tell us whether we can expect some cessation in regard to the area on lease. We ask, and I think it is a fair question, whether that area could be surrendered to the Chinese before the expiration of the lease. Such a step would surely make for good will between the Chinese and ourselves. I would beg the Secretary of State to tell us something of the attitude of his office to these matters at the earliest opportunity. We know that there again he may tell us that there is a problem arising from the complication of nationalities, and so on, and the establishment of institutions in Hong Kong. However, it would be helpful to all of us in this Committee, and to the House generally, and it would be conducive, I think, to increasing good will between ourselves and the Chinese if the Secretary of State would make some pronouncement on that very important matter.

Sir Stanley Reed: I have no desire to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Fraser) on his extraordinary ideas in regard to Hong Kong, particularly in regard to our relationship wtih China and in view of the great benefits afforded the Chinese throughout the long period of British occupation. I rather want to press one point and one only on my right hon. and gallant Friend the Colonial Secretary. I yield to none in my respectful appreciation of his policy or in my admiration of the new spirit he has brought to bear in the discharge of his great office but I would, with the same measure of respect, urge him to consider very carefully whether the execution of these policies will have their full effect or will not be at any rate grievously retarded if he does not adjust our Colonial administrative machinery to the new economic and the new social policy which are wrapped up in the Colonial Development Act. Because, if you look at the map, you will find that our Colonies are made up of an enormous number of separate and very often very small jurisdictions. That arose in part from their history, and it was maintained owing to the deficiency in communications. Those conditions, I would suggest to my right hon. Friend, have long since passed. The time has arrived for closer union rendered immediately practicable by the development of communications and in particular the rapid advance of air transport. The outstanding case is that of the West Indies—but I do not wish to touch upon the West Indies at this moment. I believe there are 14 separate jurisdictions in those islands and I am assured by those who have a recent and intimate knowledge of the West Indies that federation is in my right hon. Friend's hands to-day if he likes to take the initiative and the resolution to carry it into effect.
I want to speak very briefly upon those parts of the Colonial Empire which have been specially brought before us to-day, East Africa and West Africa. I would like to emphasise, with all the energy I command, that the federation for East Africa under one Governor-Generalship and the federation for West Africa under one Governor-Generalship are a paramount necessity to-day if our new policy is to find it full and speedy fruition. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot)


said they—that mysterious "they"—are against federation in West Africa. When he was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) whom he meant by "they", I think he found it very hard to give an answer. My right hon. Friend will recollect reading that fascinating romance by Alphonse Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon, and how Tartarin was always cautious of "they" lurking behind doors and gates. On the question of West Africa, we were told that units of administration were sometimes so small that "they" did not give an opportunity for a full political life and yet "they" were opposed to the federation, which would open up a larger political and economic life to those communities.

Colonel Stanley: My right hon. Friend meant the units of administration inside the Colony, and cited a small number of native authorities. He did not say Sierra Leone.

Sir S. Reed: But he was talking of small units of administration, if I may say so with respect, not affording a full opportunity for political activity and, at the same time, he stated that the mysterious "they" were against federation. That, I venture to submit, was a self-destructive argument. If I liked to take analogies from other parts of the British Empire I could show conclusively that small units of administration are always backward and always retrograde, because they do not afford full opportunity, and their best brains always migrate to the larger units where there is a better and freer life.
Touching on the question of East African and West African Colonies and the necessity for federation, it is true that you have Governors' conferences. But what happens if the Governors in the adjoining Provinces are not on friendly terms or cannot agree? Who decides between them? When and where these differences obtain you immediately come to the conclusion that the conferences are sterile and we are forced into the wholly irregular, if necessary, proceeding of having a Minister of State in West Africa in order to find one high individual to whom the Government can appeal and who can give decisions. I feel I must have misheard my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove, who seemed to make the perfectly astounding sug-

gestion that when the Minister of State was withdrawn there should be appointed an extra Parliamentary Secretary who would go there and assume his dictatorial functions in his stead. I hesitate to think that that could have been his idea. However, such was the impression that I got, but if on reading the OFFICIAL REPORT. I find that that was not his intention, then I will withdraw what I have said.
Let us look for a moment to inquire how these separate administrations in the same geographical area hold back progress. In Kenya there has been produced a complete, bold and resolute programme for development over the post-war years. The Rhodesians have done the same. I want to ask my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State what has been done in Tanganyika, what has been done with the Report presented by the Governor's own Committee in 1940 urging the importance of a certain measure of non-African settlement in Tanganyika as the only means of effectively producing a rapid extension of agricultural and industrial development in that area? For four years this Report has lain in a pigeonhole, while in the adjoining Colony very substantial progress has been made. It seems inconceivable that if those four territories were united under a single Governor-General there would not be coordinated development rather than unco-ordinated development in one part and stagnation in the other.
We are embarking, with full approval of all parties in the House, on an economic and social policy for the Colonies and we are to try and administer that through a Civil Service. Nobody has a higher opinion of the Civil Service, and especially our Colonial Civil Service, than I have, in its proper function, which is the administrative sphere. But I do not think you will ever have a bold economic and social policy from the Civil Service. It is not their function. Although nobody would deny to civil servants their natural ambition to rise to the head of these Federated Provinces I think it would be a most beneficial step if, on occasion, Governors-General were drawn from the ranks of public life in this country. It would mean that they would take out with them a broader conception of their duties, and the political experience which goes with our public life. In some respects the Imperial Parliament is


rich in men with overseas experience but I believe there is only one Member who has ever held high administrative office in any part of our Colonial Empire. I feel that if, on occasion, we could draw on our public life for these Governors-General—which have to be created and will be created; the longer they are postponed the more ineffective will be the execution of our new policies—we should add immensely to the political and economic life of the territories concerned and we should at the same time strengthen our own sources of knowledge on their return to take part in our discussions. I do, in all seriousness, and with great respect, press these administrative changes on my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State, because I am convinced that they are essential to the speedy fruition of his own policies and that without them we shall not find progress is as rapid as he and the House would like it to be.

Mr. Shinwell: There are only nine minutes left before we turn our attention, by the Rules of the House, to another subject, but I think that time will be sufficient for me to put to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies a definite and unequivocal point of view. I have the advantage over every other Member who has taken part in this Debate to-day. I know nothing about the Colonies, except from a cursory reading of the subject. Almost every other Member who has spoken to-day has visited the Colonies at some time or the other, and is fully acquainted with all sorts of matters relative to the Colonial situation, such as federation, higher and lower education, agriculture, and the like. I have no desire to offend, although I think that on occasion it is desirable to be offensive in these matters in order to induce a measure of progress, but those who have taken part in this Debate seem to be suffering from this defect: they cannot see the wood for the trees. In particular, do I complain of those who have dragged in the past. Every one who has studied the history of this country, and particularly the history of our Colonial administration, deplores many of the defects of past administration, but what has that to do with the present situation and with the future of our Colonies, or indeed with the world at large?
We must turn our attention to the future and the one question I want to address to the Minister—which it does not seem to have occurred to anybody to put —is, What is the Government's policy for the Colonies? The Minister has been congratulated by some, and others have deplored the fact that he has not done enough. I am not speaking of a policy of setting up committees, of selecting advisers, of a policy relating to education or of inducing the Minister to send a commission to any part of the Colonies. What I am concerned about is what is the general policy of the Government in relation to the situation we envisage when the war is over.
What is their policy in the economic sense? How do they envisage the economic development and expansion of our Colonies? When I speak of the Colonies I address myself particularly to the African Colonies, where there is almost unlimited scope for development. I appreciate the difficulties of illiteracy and of the peasantry with their primitive methods in agriculture. I recognise the difficulties of transport, but surely it is within our province to overcome all these difficulties. We must overcome them if we are to enhance the economic prestige of this country and the Empire at large. I am bound to say that I detect no advanced policy such as seems to be necessary in the circumstances. I am aware that the Minister is working under extreme limitations, that it may be difficult for him to speak—although it is not difficult for me or other Members to speak—and that he is working under a financial limitation which means that at the outside he cannot spend more than £5,000,000 a year——

Dr. Morgan: He does not spend it.

Mr. Shinwell: I am aware of that, even although I do not know so much about the Colonies as my hon. Friend. Members can pick up these trifles but I am concerned with the substance of Colonial development and I link it up with the development of the Empire and this country. As I was saying I recognise the Minister's limitations but I also recognise something else, which ought to be said. My right hon. and gallant Friend and I do not see eye to eye politically, but I recognise that his heart and soul are in the desire to make the best of his job. He has not made the best of other jobs in the


past, but I will let that fly stick to the wall. That is the past. I am convinced that he wants to make the best of this job—and a fine thing too—but if he intends to do so, if the Government wish to succeed in putting self-government on its feet, and in ensuring educational advancement, and the like, large sums of money must be placed at his disposal by the Government, even if it means some measure of sacrifice by people in this country in order to achieve what we desire. We cannot have it both ways. We must spend more than a miserable £5,000,000, and sometimes we do not spend all that. The Minister may say that he cannot spend money now, that there is no opportunity at the moment. I am not asking him for that. I am asking him to take the large view, to use his imagination, to bring vision to his assistance and to regard this as one of the largest schemes which the Government must tackle. If the Minister does not gain the support of the House in a matter of this sort then we do not deserve to have any Colonies. The attendance in the Committee at least up to this point, and some of the speeches which have been made, seem to justify the observation that we do not deserve any Colonies.
We want more Colonial Debates. After all, 60,000,000 people are concerned. We are discussing education, agriculture, economic development and self-government, but there are a thousand and one other questions to be discussed. Therefore, the Minister should have courage and go to the Government, and in particular the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the undivided support of this House and say, "We want more money. We want to promote schemes, we will use expert advice and accept all the guidance that the House can offer us, but we are determined to secure the economic and social advancement of the Colonies at the earliest possible moment." I believe that my right hon. and gallant Friend is prepared to do that. If he does he will be making a contribution not merely to the advancement of our Colonies but to the advancement, social and otherwise, of this country.

Mr. Turton: In the short time which is available before we get on to the next Business, I would like to reinforce what has been said by

the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shin-well). I am delighted that he has recognised that this country must make sacrifices for her Colonies and their development, in order to get a higher standard of living, both in the Colonies and in this country. That is a vital fact that all parties in this House should recognise. We have heard in speeches to-day appeals for development. I do not think the Committee sufficiently realise the poverty that exists in the Colonies, especially in the African Colonies, and the little that has been done so far by this country to help forward the development of those Colonies.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) both spoke on this question of development in the African Colonies. It struck me, however, that they were dealing with the matter without appreciating what sort of development the African desired for himself. It is not a great industrial revolution which is required, but an effort to build up the standard of living, not of one or two Africans, but of the whole of the African agricultural producers——

It being the hour appointed for the consideration of Opposed Private Business, and there being Private Business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 6, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY BILL [Lords] [By Order]

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [5th July], "That the Bill be now read a Second time"; which Amendment was to leave out from "That," to the end of the Question, and add instead thereof the words:
this House declines to proceed with the Second Reading of the Bill until the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company concedes trade union recognition to the professional and technical sections of its employees."—[Mr. Watkins.]

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Major Sir Edward Cadogan: It is in the recollection of the House that the Debate on these two Railway Bills was adjourned from the week before last, not on account of any defect or demerit in the Bills, but because the hon. Member for Central Hackney (Mr. Watkins) and one or two other hon. Members raised the claims of the Railway Clerks' Association for recognition. I am intervening at this early stage for a twofold reason, first, because I think I am in a position to inform the House of the course of the negotiations which have taken place since the Debate was adjourned—and one of the reasons why it was adjourned was because it was considered deplorable that when two parties were so much together, an outstanding matter should not be negotiated upon in the meanwhile—and, secondly, because I am authorised by four main line companies to make a suggestion which may enable these two Bills, which I think are innocuous and innocent Bills, to proceed to their destination under their own steam and enable us to resolve the matter in dispute, and open the door to further negotiations. I do not want to weary the House with a long history of these negotiations, which cover a period of two or three years, but I think it necessary to draw attention to one or two salient features. The main point at issue is whether the employees of the railway companies, with salaries above a certain level, should be paid in accordance with their merits and abilities in relation to their posts, or whether they should be paid in accordance with fixed scales negotiated with the trades unions. I am not going to dwell too much on the past history of these negotiations, but I think those who have not been in contact with the subject may want to know about certain points which affect the main issue.
The Railway Companies Act of 1921 established negotiating machinery between the railway companies and their employees, and the position to-day is that there is an agreement with the Railway Clerks' Association and other unions recognising that body as substantially representing the categories of employees who are in receipt of a salary of £360 a year. I might say at once that, though I mention that figure, I mean £360 a year exclusive of the advances paid on account of the war. I think the proper figure

would be £426 a year. This Railway Act specifically excluded those who are paid above the figure of £360 for negotiating purposes, although there is machinery for discussion. I need hardly explain that when I use the word "negotiate" that implies that where there is a dispute, the matter in dispute goes to arbitration. When I use the word "discussion," I mean discussion without arbitrament of any kind.
The next point I want to make clear to the House is what are the claims of the Railway Clerks' Association. The first is to negotiate for the whole of the professional and technical staff, and the second is to negotiate salary scales, not only for the professional and technical staff, but also for all the staff who are in receipt of salaries from £360 to £600 a year. The first claim is not a new one. Three years ago—I think it was in September, 1941—the companies recognised the Railway Clerks' Association as representing the technical and professional staff, for discussing complaints which could not be settled through any other channels. To this the Railway Clerks' Association agreed, and later in the same year the special class were made the same offer, which was accepted. In May, 1943, the Railway Clerks' Association submitted a very comprehensive programme for improved conditions for the staff, which also included the claim to negotiate for the fixation of scales of pay, up to those in receipt of a salary of £600 a year.
The railway companies, in response to this claim, asked that the numbers in each group that the Railway Clerks' Association claimed to represent should be furnished. This the Association refused, or said they were unable to do, but the companies thought this was a reasonable preliminary, and, after a certain amount of correspondence, suggested that the Railway Clerks' Association should supply to the Minister of Labour the number of the staff in the 16 groups which they claimed to represent, as specified in a letter which I think was read to the House early in the Debate a fortnight ago. At a later meeting the following offer was made by the railway companies. First, with regard to the professional and technical staff, full and unconditional recognition was to be given for negotiating purposes, as regards all those of the staff in receipt of salaries up to £360 a year.
The second part of the offer was, subject to the Minister of Labour's certificate, that the Railway Clerks Association substantially represented the staff as defined in each of the three groups in receipt of salaries from £360 to £600 and should have recognition for negotiating purposes except in regard to the fixation of scales of salary. That, of course, is the main point at issue. As regards the special class, the offer of the railway companies was that similar arrangements should apply to those in receipt of salaries of £360 to £600, subject to agreement with the other trade unions concerned, in respect of the sections already covered by the agreement.
That is the story of the negotiations up to date, but it is not quite the end of the story. In substance, there are two outstanding points, one rather more substantial than the other. The railway companies claim that they should be satisfied in regard to the representative character of the Railway Clerks Association. The railway companies have offered to reduce the categories of professional and technical staff to three large groups. The second point, which is more substantial still, is that the railway companies find great difficulty in negotiating, as distinct from discussing, with the Railway Clerks Association in respect of salaries for staffs above £360 a year. There was a differentiation specifically recognised in the Railways Act, 1921, since that Act provides in terms for the exclusion of the special class. The companies' offer covers something like two thirds of the total of the professional and technical staff, which numbers, in the four main line companies, about 400.

Mr. Bowles: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman speaking for all the companies or only for the London Midland and Scottish?

Sir E. Cadogan: I am speaking for the moment for the four main line companies and I am authorised by them to make a suggestion. I trust that it will be received in the spirit in which it is made, the spirit of conciliation. An amicable character has been displayed in most cases of railway disputes and it is in that spirit that I hope this discussion will take place today. I believe it is the general sense of the House that this matter should be disentangled on these two Bills

Mr. Mander: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say what precedents there are for asking for information by categories, instead of accepting a global figure?

Sir E. Cadogan: I cannot say what precedent there is. I only know what has taken place during the recent negotiations.

Mr. Mander: Does that mean that there are no precedents?

Commander Bower: Why should there be precedents?

Sir E. Cadogan: The point in dispute is very much narrowed down. The companies and the Association are in agreement up to this point. If we can leave the door open for further negotiation, it will be in the interest of the House, and of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Co. While the railway companies feel that their offer is reasonable, I am authorised to say that, notwithstanding that there was excluded from the offer the question of the fixing of scales of salaries, the railway companies will be prepared to refer to the Chairman of the Railway Staffs National Tribunal, the question of principle as to whether the fixing of scales is desirable and practicable, in respect of the professional and technical staff in receipt of salaries over £350 and up to £600. I hope that that will be acceptable to the hon. Member who raised the issue last week.

Mr. Driberg: When the hon. and gallant Gentleman says he is authorised to make this offer, does he mean that he has some interest in the railway companies, because, if so, he has not disclosed it to the House?

Sir E. Cadogan: Certainly, perhaps I should apologise for not having done so but I thought the House was in possession of the fact. I am the deputy-chairman of the Great Western Railway Co. Viewed in the light of the considerations that I put forward, I hope it will be conceded that the companies are acting in a spirit of reasonableness and in the interest of the industry.

Mr. Watkins: Mr. Watkins (Hackney, Central) rose——

Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. Member the leave of the House?

Mr. Watkins: I ask for leave to speak a second time in the Debate. I should like to report what has transpired since the Debate was adjourned a fortnight ago. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, the Member for Bolton (Sir E. Cadogan) has made a very interesting speech but a great deal of it was completely irrelevant and did not in any way approach the real difficulty between us and the London Midland and Scottish Railway Co. He spoke about salary scales. We are not differing about salary scales. Our point is the simple one of recognition, whether the company will recognise the Railway Clerks' Association as the trade union to negotiate a settlement about working conditions for the men in the professional and technical classes.

Commander Bower: Has the hon. Member any particular interest in the Railway Clerks Association?

Mr. Watkins: Not the slightest, except the interest that every man should have to see that justice and right are done—certainly no financial interest of any kind. The Debate a fortnight ago turned on that one central fact. The Association has the majority of these people in its membership. We have declared it to the railway company—we have given them an assurance on the point—and we feel that, having given it, the company should say "Very good, we will recognise you and we will proceed to negotiate along the lines of your suggestion." The talk about the Railways Act, 1921, is beside the point. The professional and technical people are in a special and exceptional class in the railway service. They are a highly paid class in comparison with the ordinary railway clerk. Thirty-eight per cent. of them are getting more than £360, whereas only five per cent. of the railway clerks earn above that figure. They have asked us to negotiate a settlement about conditions.
After the Debate a fortnight ago, in due course, after many days, the railway company invited our people to meet them and made the offer referred to. I want to look at it carefully and to indicate how it does not meet the case upon which, in my judgment, we had the sympathy of the House. The hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman), when he moved the Adjournment of the Debate, said he had

never seen the House so unanimous on our side and against the railway company. First, the company agreed to recognise the R.C.A. as the negotiating trade union for all these people up to £360 a year. Then we were asked to split them into categories and to get a certificate from the Ministry of Labour for each of these categories to prove that we have a substantial number before negotiations can begin. My hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) asked about a precedent, and the hon. and gallant Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) asked why there should be a precedent. This is a new thing in railway trade union experience. No trade union has ever been asked whether it has a majority in the union. We are very decent to the company even in saying that we have a majority. Having said that, and then to be asked to split up our numbers into separate groups and prove that we have a majority in each group, is something which no trade union has ever been asked to do. I am surprised that the company have asked us to do it.
I have been doing railway negotiating work for a good many years, and I was astounded to learn that the company suggested that they should circularise all the men getting more than £360 a year and ask them to declare whether they were or were not members of the Railway Clerks' Association, and then to send the forms to the Ministry of Labour for audit and assessment. That kind of thing never happens in the trade union world, and it ought not to happen here. Mention has been made of referring to the Chairman of the Railway Staff Conference the question of the fixation of scales. We do not say that scales of salaries must be fixed, but we do say we have a right to discuss whether scales of salaries should be fixed and not go into negotiation with an absolute negative against their being fixed.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: So that I may understand what the hon. Member is saying, will he state who is meant by "we"? Has he any interest in the Railway Clerks' Association, and should he not declare to whom he is referring?

Mr. Watkins: I do not know whether that question was prompted by curiosity or not. I was for a number of years


President of the Railway Clerks' Association—unpaid—and I am speaking on their behalf and at their request.

Commander Bower: Why did not the hon. Gentleman disclose that when I asked him just now?

Mr. Watkins: Surely I am not called upon to disclose anything which happened in my life years ago. I challenge the hon. and gallant Member whether he is prepared to say everything that happened to him.

Commander Bower: Commander Bower rose——

Mr. Speaker: These personal matters are quite irrelevant.

Commander Bower: I do not know whether this is a point of Order but it is considered to be the practice, I think, that when an hon. Member has a vested interest in a company, or a union, in a case like this, he is supposed to disclose it.

Mr. Speaker: The connection of the hon. Member with the Railway Clerks' Association is perfectly clear, and I think that everybody in the House knows it.

Commander Bower: Do I understand, therefore, that it is not necessary that hon. Members should disclose their connections with organisations about which they are speaking?

Mr. Speaker: I did not say so, but when everybody knows what the connection is, it is not necessary to state it. No financial interest, moreover, is involved in this case.

Mr. Watkins: My hon. and gallant Friend says that he wants to remove this matter from the House of Commons and get it settled. So do we. I hated the idea of bringing it to the House. It was difficult for me to do it, because my relations with chief officers of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company over a number of years have been excellent. I met them from day to day until recently on all sorts of problems, and we have always got on very well together. But they now dig their heels in, and adopt an attitude of mulish obstinacy in a matter in which they are deeply wrong. They are taking action without precedent or justification, and are doing an act against a body of men, who should be the

very last to be treated in this way. I wish I could tell the House of the service of these professional and technical men, not only to the company, but to the nation, of what they did during the blitz period, and of what they did to get ready for D Day. When they say, "May the R.C.A. represent us in free and unfettered negotiations about our working conditions?" the railway companies just slam the door in their faces. It is not the kind of treatment that employers should give to workpeople, if they want the kind of country all the rest of us want when the war is over.
I want to get this matter settled. I am prepared to make a suggestion, and I hope my hon. Friends, on behalf of the railway companies, will accept it. We are prepared to accept the decision of the Ministry of Labour on whether or not recognition should be afforded to the Railway Clerks' Association to negotiate with the railway companies for the professional and technical grades up to £600 a year. The companies take one view. We take another. We are to assume that each side is sure that it is right, and there is deadlock. We will take a third party judgment on it, and let the Ministry of Labour decide. We will accept their finding whatever it is, and I hope that the railway companies will too. Will the companies accept this offer?

Commander King-Hall: Has the hon. Gentleman any information on whether the Ministry of Labour would accept this task, if the railway companies agreed?

Mr. Watkins: I have no direct information on that point, but from what I know of the Ministry of Labour, who are always extremely helpful in matters of this kind, I do not think there will be any difficulty in getting them to arbitrate.

Mr. Goldie: It is, indeed, true that the sins of the fathers are often visited on the children, and in making the time-honoured declaration that I am a shareholder in the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company, I should not like the House to think for a moment that that lamentable misfortune is any fault of mine. I should like to assure the hon. and gallant Member for Bolton (Sir E. Cadogan) that I have also the privilege of being associated to a small financial extent with the company of which he is such a


distinguished vice-chairman. I find myself on this matter in a position of considerable difficulty. My real regret is that the hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) is not with us to-day, because he is one to whom, with regard to railway matters, I always look for guidance and assistance, as they are matters of which I have no personal experience.
This matter is one of considerable difficulty. I have the honour to represent a Northern constituency which I left early this morning, because I was approached by the Railway Clerks' Association and asked to come here to-day to do what I could to help. I expect that other hon. Members are in much the same position. My difficulty is that when in my constituency a considerable volume of opinion feels that people are not getting a fair deal from the railway companies, it is my duty to look into the matter carefully. On the other hand, I realise that the dispute between the Railway Clerks' Association and the railway companies has nothing whatever to do with the Bill before the House. I am unfortunate in not having been an employer of labour. My life has lain in professional grooves and I have never been the director of a private or public company. I can, therefore, approach this matter from an impersonal point of view. With regard to the suggestion which the hon. and gallant Member for Bolton has brought forward, the issue is simply this—Should or should not these gentlemen connected with the Railway Clerks' Association be represented by that Association?
With regularity, once a year, I receive from every railway company in England a form of proxy which I invariably consign to the waste-paper basket. At the same time I find myself wondering why another place ever authorised, from a legal point of view, the expenditure of shareholders' money for such a purpose. Why on earth cannot a postcard be sent to every gentleman concerned, with the simple question: "Do you want to be represented by the Railway Clerks' Association?" and inviting the answer "Yes" or "No"? It is obvious that one occupying a distinguished position cannot negotiate without being fully informed of the situation, but when there is this body of technical and professional people, as I understand the position, it is one's duty to find an answer to the question whether they want to be repre-

sented by the Railway Clerks' Association. I suggest that the best way to deal with this matter is to postpone it until after the Recess and, in the meantime, to find out whether those gentlemen want to be represented by the Railway Clerks' Association.

Mr. Mathers: May I interrupt the hon. and learned Member? He mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) for whom he professed a very great admiration. Many of us have had a lifelong admiration for my hon. Friend, who was able to state, when this matter was previously before the House, that the Railway Clerks' Association contained more than two-thirds the number of people who are regarded by the railway companies as coming within these categories, and who have asked the Railway Clerks' Association to represent them.

Mr. Goldie: I am very much obliged to the hon. Member. What he has said confirms exactly what I said, but so that there should be no mistake at all—and one accepts every word that the hon. Member for South Bristol has told us—I suggest that it is up to the railway companies to find out definitely whether these people agree with the views of the hon. Member for South Bristol.

Mr. Woodburn: In regard to the suggestion that there should be a personal postcard to every individual, may I point out that one of the main purposes of collective bargaining is to remove from negotiation between employers and employees any possibility of victimisation? If the suggested postcard were sent, it would raise the question for every individual: "Am I opening myself to some victimisation by signing this postcard?"

Mr. Goldie: I agree with the hon. Member, but the point is to find out whether the professional and technical gentlemen shall be represented by the Railway Clerks' Association. I do not see where victimisation comes in, but, from the point of view of the railway companies, the matter should be cleared up. I do not accept the suggestion of compromise put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bolton. This House should be placed in possession of the facts as to whether the Railway Clerks' Association represents these people.

Mr. F. Anderson: Before the hon. and learned Member leaves the point, may I ask whether he is aware that thousands of the gentlemen concerned had already signified their desire that the R.C.A. should represent them, by filling up membership forms and becoming members of the Association in a voluntary way? A second point is, what is the difficulty about accepting the suggestion as to the Minister of Labour? He is an independent person, and if he is satisfied that those who have filled up the forms have asked the R.C.A. to represent them, what difficulty can there be?

Mr. Goldie: It is unforgivable to use Latin in the House of Commons in these days, but perhaps I might quote:
Timeo Danaos et donor forentes.
My hon. Friend is trying to give me assistance in a matter in which I was trying to help him, but I refuse to put myself into the wooden horse of Troy in that fashion.

Mr. Anderson: Will the hon. and learned Member answer the question?

Mr. Goldie: I would remind hon. Members that this is not the first time we have had to deal with this matter. I do not know whether hon. Members remember that, two or three years ago, we had to deal with a Bill from the London and North Eastern Railway Company. It was blocked in exactly the same way by a trade union because of a difficulty about an assessment of pension. That matter was settled amicably and to everybody's satisfaction, and I cannot see why this matter cannot be so settled. Only a month ago, we had exactly the same difficulty arising out of the Education Bill, with regard to the National Association of Schoolmasters. There, the President of the Board of Education very properly gave way and said he was willing to meet in consultation representatives of the National Association of Schoolmasters, although he was not prepared to recognise them as the recognised trade union. Surely everybody with common sense m this honourable House can put their heads together and get this matter settled in the interests of those who really matter—not the railway companies themselves, but the members of the Railway Clerks' Association. My view is that it would be easy to put the Bill off until after the Parliamentary Recess. It would put the

Railway Clerks' Association in an absolutely impregnable position with regard to
their contention. I sincerely trust that the matter will be so dealt with. Although I am not in a position, and have not the knowledge, to express definite views from the point of view of the Railway Clerks' Association, I am told by my constituents, and I accept their views, that the Association are clearly entitled to the justice which they seek at the hands of this House.

Mr. Mathers: The hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie) has attempted in a new way to simplify the matter, but I am afraid that postponing the Bills at the present moment would mean, for all practical purposes, that they would be lost to the House and to the railway company for this Session. Our object in raising this matter has never been to attack these Bills vindictively, or to deny the benefits that these Bills would confer upon a number of people; but this is the only opportunity we have. I am, and have been for many years, a member of the Railway Clerks' Association, and that is why I am particularly interested in the Debate. I want to warn hon. Members against over-simplification of this position, and against a certain appearance on the part of the railway company of having gone a considerable way to meet the point of view of the Railway Clerks' Association. It is true that on the last occasion we had no indication whatsoever of any recognition for the professional and technical staffs of the L.M.S., and that to-day we have had recognition given or offered in respect of those with salaries up to £360 a year. That may appear to some people to be a considerable concession, but it is no real concession at all. It still maintains a bar against the proper functioning of a trade union in respect of a very large number of that section of railway workers. The offer that is made in that regard by the railway company only carries into effect a measure of recognition that was given to the clerical staff 25 years ago.
I suggest to this House that there is a considerable difference between ordinary rank and file railway clerks, of whom I am one, and men who are on the professional and technical staffs of our railway companies. There is also a considerable difference in conditions


and outlook with regard to incomes as between 1919 and 1944, and it seems to me to be quite derisory to say that this should meet the claim we have been making on behalf of the professional and technical staffs in the railway service. The other point is that, although the railway companies have come away from the 16 categories on which they wanted us to prove a substantial membership in each particular category, they have reduced that to three groups, which means six groups, because these have to be divided into those below £360 a year, and those above £360 a year. In that respect the companies are still insisting upon the application of a principle that we as trade unionists cannot agree to, in the light of ordinary trade union practice. If we accepted the segregation of our membership in the way which is asked we would be letting down the whole of our trade union colleagues outside, and we would be striking a blow at ordinary trade union negotiations to which we should not be asked to submit. We must refuse to create a precedent of this kind.
The position that has been arrived at, and the impasse in which we seem to be placed at the present time, are due to what the hon. Member for South Bristol {Mr. A. Walkden) on the last occasion called a "pernickety attitude" on the part of certain officials. I am of the third generation of railway workers, and this is the first time I have felt inclined to be ashamed of my railway connections, because, in spite of the excellent negotiating machinery that is available for use in the railway service throughout this country we have a position like this arising that should never arise, that should not be allowed to arise if a reasonable course were taken. The claim we are making is that we should be entitled to represent these people within our membership, whatever their salaries may be, and we suggest that the line which was drawn in respect of the clerical staff 25 years ago at £350 per annum outside London and £360 per annum within the Metropolitan area, is a line that in respect of the professional and technical staff in 1944 should be drawn at £600, and that we should be free to negotiate fully in respect of those men up to that figure in respect of the scales of salary to which they might become entitled. The railway companies on the last occasion

pleaded that scales could not properly be fixed up to salaries of that amount. They say that, but the men themselves say differently. The men themselves have drawn up for negotiation scales up to £600—one figure indeed goes up to £650 for a particular grade that is mentioned in the proposals that have been put forward.
There is nothing impossible in respect of according full recognition for negotiating purposes in regard to scales between £360 and £600 per annum if only the railway companies would be reasonable, and I suggest that the very moderate request of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney (Mr. Watkins), that a decision in respect of recognition should be one taken by the Minister of Labour, is one below which we should not be asked to go, arid as one which, if we did go below it, would mean that we would be denying the proper trade union rights of our members. If the L.M.S. Company and those associated with them in attempting to withstand this claim are not prepared to concede what has been put before them to-day, I suggest to the House that would show the L.M.S. and those associated with them to be unworthy to have the powers asked for in these Bills, because of the fact that they are not acting reasonably in respect of powers which they already have.

Sir E. Cadogan: With the leave of the House, and in order to assist the House, may I be allowed to say that the companies would accept the certificate of the Minister of Labour certifying that the Railway Clerks' Association were representative of a substantial number of the grades in question?

Mr. Watkins: I am sorry that I was out and did not catch the whole of what my hon. and gallant Friend said. Would he be kind enough to repeat it?

Sir E. Cadogan: I was saying that the railway companies, I believe, would accept the certificate of the Minister of Labour that the Railway Clerks' Association represents a substantial number of the grades in question.

Mr. Anderson: Is that said now with the authority of the railway companies or of the Railway Executive?

Sir E. Cadogan: The railway companies.

Mr. Watkins: I think that statement by my hon. and gallant Friend is very satisfactory, as meaning that when the company receives the certificate from the Minister of Labour that we represent a substantial number, negotiations can start forthwith in a free and unfettered way. In those circumstances, I have very great pleasure in asking the House to give me leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY, (CANALS) BILL [Lords] [By Order].

Read a Second time, and committed.

SUPPLY

Again considered in Committee.

Postponed Proceeding on Question:
That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to His Majesty, to wards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Colonial Administration, for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1945, namely:


Class II., Vote 7, Colonial Office
£10


Class II., Vote 8, Colonial and Middle Eastern Services
£10


Class II., Vote 8, Colonial and Middle Eastern Services (Supplementary sum)
£10


Class II., Vote 9, Development and Welfare (Colonies, etc.)
£10



£40"

Mr. Turton: Before the interruption of the Debate I was talking on the question of development and whether the right way to develop our Colonies was in terms of an industrial revolution, or rather of raising the standard of living of all the natives by encouraging their main industries, agriculture and forestry. I said that I thought that two of the previous speakers had stressed too much this view of an industrial revolution. The test, I think, of what the Colonial Secretary has done up to now is seen in his return under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act. If we take the Colony of Nigeria, we find that this year there is only one scheme for the whole Colony—a scheme costing £230,000, for the replacement of a dredger

lost by enemy action. When you consider that you have there a population of 28,000,000, whose industries are to-day very impoverished, it is surely a criticism of my right hon. and gallant Friend that all he can produce for Nigeria is what I should call, not development, but replacement of war damage. West Africa with its development schemes compares very unfavourably with the treatment that the West Indies are receiving. Jamaica, according to this White Paper, has 17 schemes, amounting to £1,200,000. Jamaica has a population of 1,000,000. I hope that, as the result of what has been said in this Debate, greater encouragement will be given to our West African Colonies.
Let me say a word about forestry. I have always been struck with the great scope that there is for raising the trade in timber products in the Empire. The African Colonies have 350,000,000 acres of timber, yet before the war their whole export of timber, to this country and to other countries, amounted to £317,000 a year. Compare that with Sweden, which had 55,000,000 acres of timber, and whose export trade amounted to £41,000,000 a year. We have failed so far to take advantage of the natural timber resources in the Empire. That has had very serious repercussions on the Colonies, politically and economically.

Dr. Haden Guest: Is the hon. Member suggesting that there should be a greatly increased export of timbers from West Africa, apart from the hardwoods; and can he tell us what the timbers are and what is their use? The point I want to bring out is that the Swedish timber is useful for building and that, as far as I know, the African timber is not. The timber in Africa is mostly on the land owned by the African inhabitants, on communal tenure. What does the hon. Member propose about that? I think that he is misinformed. I do not think that the African timber is of sufficient value to compete with Swedish.

Mr. Turton: I suggest that the hon. Member should listen to what I propose, and then, in due course, he can raise any points. In the hinterland of the Colonies you have annual encroachment by the Sahara. What was fertile a decade or so ago is becoming desert. On the coastal belt you have soil erosion. Yearly we are losing part of our Colonies


by soil erosion. Both those factors could be cured by an extension of forestry. The Commission, of which I think the hon. Gentleman himself was a member, realised that, and pointed to the Ibo experiment, where natives had been told, "Whatever land you plant you may keep. "That is one suggestion I make: that forestry should be encouraged, quite clearly under native proprietorship, for that is the system of our Colonial administration. The other problem is that agriculture in Africa is unthrifty and uneconomic, owing to what is called the system of "shifting cultivation." The native comes along, cuts down, the timber, plants his yams or macuma, and then moves along to another belt of timber. As a result, we are losing our timber resources. There was an experiment which I witnessed at Eggozi which I think deserves notice in this House. They have experimented in the rotation of crops, and have found that by the rotation of maize, yams, macuma and cassava you can keep the fertility of the soil, and there is no need for this great destruction of the timber resources. Therefore, I claim that more timber should be planted, and that what timber is planted should be conserved.
The real reason why we and the Colonies pay not the slightest attention to their timber is that the natives make very little use of timber for domestic purposes. I think it is wrong to suggest, as the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) did by his interjection, that there is no use for African timber except for mahogany. I could prove him wrong if I could take him around the Nigerian furniture factory, where Nigerian timber is being used with great effect, and from which I believe exports have been made to our different theatres of war during this war. Africa has a great number of timbers which compare favourably with our hardwoods, like obeche, which is a very good white timber, and of great value for furniture and building. We must try to develop the export of timber from West Africa to this country. What prevents this is lack of capital and lack of ships adapted for the trade. There is no failure by the West Africans to realise the advantages of trade with this country. They want to increase their trade with this country in every possible manner. I hope that the Colonial Secretary will touch on that side of the question.
We have heard a lot about development and the great need to raise the standard of living in all our Colonies, but there is one great obstacle to development that has not been touched upon yet, that this House must face up to with realism and with frankness, whatever difficulties it may cause us in our relations with other Powers. I refer to the Mandated Territories. So long as you have large areas of territory which have no certain future, you cannot attract capital to them, and you cannot have any development plan. As far as I can understand, the system under which the Mandated Territories are held differs from the Colonial system in four respects: first, uncertainty as to their future; second, the ban on all fortifications and naval bases; third, what I shall call the open door policy; and, fourth, the submission of annual reports to the League of Nations.
Except for those four conditions, the African Colonies are held on exactly the same principles as the Mandated Territories, but what a great disadvantage it is for a native of a Mandated Territory to know that there is no certainty that the Mandatory Power will remain the Mandatory Power, and to find that capital will not come to help the development of his industries because, again, there is that uncertainty over the future. I hope the Colonial Secretary, in his reply, will give us a little more certainty on that matter.
As to the ban on fortifications, I would only say that it is, to me, inconceivable that, at the end of this war, the United Nations could possibly permit a territory to be defenceless, when strategy dictates that for consideration of security fortifications should be erected or a naval base established. It will be a crime against the future peace of the world if we leave territories that are mandated in a defenceless position. That may have been perfectly sound when the Convention of Saint Germain-en-Laye was made, but after the war defence provisions must be made for these territories in agreement with the other United Nations.
Let me say this about the "open door." This is an involved problem, because the "open door" of the Convention of Saint Germain-en-Laye is mixed up with the Congo Basin Treaties, and if you are going to amend one you have to amend the other. I put this to the Committee. Is it fair that natives of a Mandated


Territory should not be free to exercise their own fiscal policy? As long as you have this "open door" policy, it means that the Convention or the Mandate determines what taxes should or should not be levied on goods entering that country. I believe that it is right that the Mandated Territories should be in exactly the same position as the Colonies, and that the inhabitants of the Colonies and Mandated Territories should determine their own fiscal policy in the interests of their own prosperity and with due regard to their trade with other countries. The time has, I believe, come when these three differences between Mandated Territories and Colonies should disappear.
About the last difference—the submission of annual reports to the League of Nations—I can see nothing very terrifying in that. The reports give very striking illustrations of what can be done in administration, but let us extend it. Not only should these territories have an annual report; there are other undeveloped countries, and, I believe, for instance, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) mentioned Liberia. I believe Liberia and Ethiopia and other countries should have reports submitted on them to the United Nations. The Mandates Committee of the League of Nations may not be easy to resurrect after the war. Let us build something new after this war. Let us have, as was suggested in a book by my hon. Friend the Member for East Fulham (Mr. Astor), some council for undeveloped territories and let us have both Colonial and non-Colonial Powers on that council. Let the undeveloped Colonies, whether they have been previously mandated or not, be supervised by that council, and let annual reports be made, but let there not be, in that system, any failure to have security of tenure, so long as a good administration is conducted.
I am quite sure that it would be in the interests of the British Empire to have some of our own undeveloped Colonies brought into that system. We have nothing to fear. It would be a great awakening to some of the critics in the United States if they were able to read the reports on our Colonial administration. That is one of the great difficulties. The Mandated Territories did give full annual reports, much fuller than we ever got

about the Colonies. I hope the Minister will give us a policy for the Mandated Territories. It is quite wrong that we should go ahead with our hands tied in the development of these Colonies. The time has come for a radical change in our administration of the Mandates.
It always has been a proud and sobering reflection to feel that the prosperity, the health and the whole livelihood of many millions in our Colonial Empire depend on our foresight in Parliament, but what I welcomed most, in the short intervention of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), was the very fact of the realisation that the prosperity of this country equally depends upon the prosperity of our Colonial Empire. We are mutually interdependent, and on too many occasions we have talked in this House on the depressed areas of this country, and on too few discussed the depressed Colonial territories in the Empire. If we can get prosperity in the Empire it will help those whom the chances and hazards of the export trade often condemn to unemployment, and, if we can secure that higher prosperity, I believe we can march forward to a still more glorious future.

Dr. Morgan: There is much to be said and little time in which to say it. I hope to confine myself, as I usually do, to a part of the Colonial Commonwealth which I know. The hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) said he had the qualification of not very intimate knowledge of the subject but wanted to stress certain general principles. I think that is a very good point to make, and I have never forgotten! that the hon. Member for Seaham, when I was trying hard to get a certain man released from prison because he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in Barbados for asking his fellow workers to join a trade union, made one interjection: "Is what the hon. Member is saying really true? Is it really called sedition to ask a fellow worker to join a trade union?" The hon. Member did not realise that, as a result of what was said here, this man was released from prison with nearly seven years to go. This was the man about whom the Under-Secretary for the Colonies announced in the House that he could not be released because this House could not interfere with the self-governing Colony of Barbados. I am very glad that a front


bencher with such a virile power of speech should come to the rescue of the more obscure of us who sit on the back benches.
I want to touch upon one or two particular matters connected with the medical services in the Colonies, with special reference to certain diseases and certain improvements that have recently been made. One is always in a difficulty in making a speech in the House of Commons, which is regarded as a sounding board, and if anything very disparaging is said or the truth really stated, one is always liable to be told by opponents that one is making to the world certain disgraceful statements about the conditions in the British Empire and doing great harm to the British Commonwealth. Far be it from me to do that. I know from what I have seen of other European countries which have Colonies in the world that our Colonial System, bad as it is, is the best that could possibly be witnessed in such a civilization as exists to-day. But because we are some miles ahead of the best of other European countries. I do not think that we should be resentful of criticism, but rather that we should regard this, instead of being a bludgeon knocking us out of the ring, as a prod to do better.
In the course of a previous Debate on the national health services I made a statement with regard to the overriding local bureaucracy and I said that the Colonial Medical Service was one of the worst in the world and was a disgrace. That led to views being expressed in the "British Medical Journal" by men of the notoriety, sobriety and solidity of Lord Hailey, an example of the Herrenvolk mind apparently, who, after his retirement from Indian civil administration, took an interest in Colonial affairs. He was followed by certain other knights, including Sir Philip Manson Bahr, and one of my previous colleagues in this House, Sir Drummond Shields, who occupies a position with the Empire Parliamentary Association which one would have thought would have given him no political right to indulge in our controversial questions in public. The Minister, also without notice to me, in my absence, on the last occasion, made the most contemptuous references to me personally and said rather contemptuously, "We all know the Member for Rochdale; now and again he puts forward a constructive criti-

cism but he makes an irrelevant interjection without any great importance on all sorts of matters." The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is entitled to any private opinion he may have about me, but I represent the doctors he employs in the West Indies on the British Medical Association Council. I also hold certain honourable medical positions in the democratic movement in Britain. He referred to me as Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll, at any rate, was a brave and courageous man—although it is a fictional story—a half lunatic, sane in some moments, and mad in others.

Mr. Bartle Bull: What is wrong with that?

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Member perhaps thinks that he deserves it.

Mr. Bull: No, I do not.

Dr. Morgan: I do not think that I do, in the conditions under which the right hon. and gallant Member expressed it.

Mr. Bull: I was not going to explain it about myself; the hon. Gentleman was explaining it.

Dr. Morgan: I was talking about a statement made by the Secretary of State, and from what I see of the hon. Member, I do not think that much explanation is needed from him personally.

Mr. Bull: That is very kind.

Dr. Morgan: I do not care about myself; I can give hard knocks and take them, but my people in the West Indies resent this very much. They know the work I am doing for them, good, bad or indifferent. The Secretary of State was rather sensitive and resentful of criticism, for my remarks were applied to conditions of service rather than to Colonial medical personnel. I have gone out of my way to praise the excellent, devoted and hard work of the medical men in the Colonial Medical Service who have given long hours under discouraging conditions. I mentioned in particular the men in the Caribbees, especially the port medical officers who do their work by keeping away plague and yellow fever and diseases of that kind. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, as well as the "British Medical Journal" writers, attacked me with violence, whereas if he had asked me privately I could have given him a reason-


able explanation. I have given a sober answer to the "British Medical Journal" and I am still waiting for an answer from Lord Hailey. Is it not true that certain medical conditions in certain Colonies are bad?
Take Nigeria: there is a Colony in which we have had a Government-owned colliery—used for 35 years. Is it not the fact that there is a high rate of accidents because the Nigerian miners, after cycling and walking 10 miles a day and more to work, worked in the mines and there suffered leg wounds because they had to work without leg and foot protection? Is that the fault of the medical men? Is it not a fact that the medical men asked that foot guards should be provided for these men and that such a provision reduced the accident rate by 50 per cent. per year? Surely it does not need any great acumen to see that there was something wrong. I have documents here from medical journals in the West Indies against the handling of disease and as to the facts admitted and time and time again dissatisfaction is expressed there. Take, for example, leprosy, a disease which could be wiped out in the West Indies in 10 years. There are 3,000 cases altogether. Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that the medical men have no power to discharge such cases under the constitution say in Jamaica and that powers of discharge of a patient lie, under the law, in the hands of the magistrate. Does he deny that? Is not that true?
Is not that a bad position in which to put medical men, in that they have no right to discharge certain patients from certain hospitals in respect of certain diseases? It has to be a decision of the resident magistrate, who has no medical knowledge to enable him to decide on a medical problem. Does he not realise that in the island of Grenada, where I was born, he has increased the burdens of medical officers and given them worsened conditions in an increased population? Does he realise that when I was in Trinidad in 1939 the medical men of Trinidad, worried by evidence for the Commission, held a meeting of the British Medical Association? I was present at the meeting, because I was their representative. They had asked the Government, through the Acting Colonial Secretary—the

present Governor of Jamaica was then Acting Governor, and the Acting Colonial Secretary, who, in my opinion, was not a good officer—whether they were entitled to give medical evidence of conditions in the Colony before the Royal Commission. Does he know what official answer they received from the authorities? Instead of the Acting Colonial Secretary saying, "Certainly, by all means, no one can prevent you. You are entitled to go before the Royal Commission, which can hear and are hearing evidence from all sections of the population. You as doctors are entitled to go there and give your advice," What do hon. Members think he did? He referred them to the appropriate Colonial Office Regulation, which stated that no officer employed by the Government might, on grounds of public policy, make any disclosure of information coming into his possession at the time of his work. So these medical men, in my presence, said, "We are finished. This Memorandum which we have prepared cannot be presented to the Commission. Our pensions and our super-annuations are at stake. We dare not." One medical man I know, a good medico, said, "My children are being educated in Great Britain. If I go as your representative to the Commission, as you ask, I may be sacked by the Government because of disobedience to this Regulation." I was asked to see what could be done and so went to ask Sir Walter Citrine, a member of the Commission, to appeal to Lord Moyne, as Chairman, whether that Order could be countermanded, and whether the local medical men representing the British Medical Association could go there and give their views without fear of penalisation. Let it be put to the credit of the Commission and the Commissioners that they immediately said, "Of course, this is quite wrong. The medical men are entitled to come to this Commission and give their evidence." They did so, with very good effect. I regret to say that the Report of that Commission has not yet been published. May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman when we may expect it to be published?
Those are the conditions of which I was complaining; I was not complaining of the individual medical men. Maybe I could have complained of certain of the men the right hon. and gallant Gentleman appoints to official posts. I want him to


appoint more of the local medical talent. I gave him a case in my letter to him, which he did not think worthy of reply, of the medical officer of health of the City of Port of Spain in Trinidad. That doctor had received from this country the highest medical qualifications he could possibly obtain for his work—a diploma in tropical medicine, a diploma in public health, all sorts of higher degrees in addition to the ordinary degree of the University of London. Yet the man appointed as the director of medical services was a plain M.B., Ch.B., of Glasgow University who had never bothered to take a higher degree, and some of us knew from our period in Glasgow University. Yet men in the service, local-born European men, coloured and not coloured—it is hard to tell the difference, because they all get sun-tanned and you can only tell by the fact that as a rule the hair of the European does not curl—men who have served 30 years in the Colony, have never been appointed to the post of chief medical officer, except, now, the acting deputy Director-General of Medical Services in Trinidad. Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman get up and tell me of any other medical officer who has been appointed to any of the higher supervisory posts in respect of local knowledge and by reason of his qualifications, in respect of his years in the service, and of coming over here for study leave? All the time they appoint a European with less experience and lower degrees.
This is the sort of thing I was after: No Whitley Council, no organised basis for making representations, no arbitrative machinery of any kind. The Medical Board at Trinidad is still in the melting pot, a Board which has done work for 150 years. The local Government of Trinidad, time and time again, have attempted to disrupt that Board. They want to take away from that Board the power of recognising diplomas and give to the Government the power of recognising diplomas that would not be recognised in Great Britain. Is that not true? That was what I was thinking of when I said the Colonial medical service is a disgrace. I was not referring to my many friends and colleagues, even my own brother who is in the Colonial Medical Service. I would not think of disparaging the very fine work they are

doing, and I hoped that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would at least have given me credit for having some common sense. I may be mad perhaps at odd moments, but I think I am sane at most.
Let me put this point to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. I know that his heart is of gold and I know that he means well, and I am not saying a word against him. This is nothing personal, far from it; I believe he will probably end by being the best Colonial Secretary we have had if he continues as he is now. It is the system, it is the way things now work which I want to criticise. The other day I went to the Colonial Office and I was shocked to see three maps on a wall. I have never seen maps there before. I think it was the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain who said that the walls of the Colonial Office should be covered with maps from the very entrance. I said, "Somebody is waking up here." Let me remind the right hon. and gallant Gentleman of this. In one of my Hyde-drugged-moments I put before him a very good scheme for West Indian nursing from the point of view of recruitment in Great Britain, and also for federal nursing. Is the whole thing still in the melting pot? I think it has been prejudiced already. His Controller of the West Indian Welfare and Development Fund has already announced a scheme at an open conference of the senior medical officers in St. Lucia, in 1943. I have said nothing since, because I know official information takes a long time to trickle back, but a scheme like that has been before the Colonial Office for two or three years. The London County Council refused to do it at first, but was induced to adopt it after I had published an article in a very valuable monthly journal called "Tomorrow." Then the L.C.C. said, "We will take between nine and 14"—or whatever the number was—"from the West Indies and train them here so that they can go back and give service in their islands." Is that a Jekyll and Hyde madman pronouncement? And such an announcement of such an excellent nursing training scheme should first have been made in the House of Commons.
That is not the only scheme I put up. I put up another scheme about St. Kitts. I pointed out that the St. Kitts Sugar Factory for the last 30 years has never


earned less than 100 to 1,000 per cent. per year in all its history after having paid for the factory and the railroad round the Island. Yet the wages of the workers, especially the women, remain at 1s. per day and the estates are under contract to the company. They dare not leave because there is no other sugar factory on the island. There is no housing on the estate because there is no land available—it is all used for sugar— and the people have to live in the town of Basseterre. One medical officer there is doing very fine work in encouraging people to have early treatment for leprosy. He is a coloured gentleman, Dr. Jones. Yet he has not been awarded an O.B.E. while some of the capitalist lawyers and the business men of Trinidad get honours. Can there not be a better distribution of these honours and so encourage these medical men to do better work? When I put up a scheme about the alternative employment of women in coal-bearing in St. Lucia, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not think my alternative proposals for employment were practicable during war. Did I not put before him a scheme for West Indian training? He wrote me a letter about it. I would like to read it because it is not marked "Personal," but if he tells me it is personal I will not do so.

Colonel Stanley: I do not mind if the hon. Gentleman reads it.

Dr. Morgan: My scheme was to train boys in the West Indies in character and education. I discussed it at the Colonial Office with the late Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and he thought it was a good scheme. Two years later, in May of this year, I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman, knowing he is very well-intentioned, to ask what had happened to the scheme, whether it had been cooked long enough or what had happened. This was his reply:

"Dear Dr. Morgan,

"I am afraid you have caught us out badly about your Training Ship scheme for boys in the British West Indies. I can only plead that it was not me! Apparently it was Macmillan with whom you spoke, and to whom you handed the memorandum some time in 1942, but owing to the result of a misunderstanding on the part of his secretary the paper, instead of being sent on for consideration, was put away and nothing further was done. I must apologise for this treatment."

Mr. Magnay: Most unusual.

Dr. Morgan: What? The apology? No, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is very good. The letter continued:
I have now had an opportunity of looking at the scheme and, at first sight, I like it. I am sending it on urgently to the Comptroller for his views, and I will write you again when I hear from him. With many regrets, Yours sincerely, etc.
Nothing was done for over two years. Was I a Jekyll and Hyde here, or "Hide and Seek" in the Colonial Office? A very decent letter, a very fine letter, but a witness of the sort of thing which is going on in London. It is striking evidence how somebody in the Colonial Office had an attack of sleeping sickness immediately I presented this memorandum.

Captain Cobb: Is not that typical of everything which is controlled by the State?

Dr. Morgan: Far from it. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had seen the State hospitals in New Zealand he would know how well they are conducted.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): If we have many more of these reminiscences we shall be going back generations. We cannot consider matters connected with the Dominions Office as well as the Colonial Office.

Dr. Morgan: I agree, Mr. Williams, but I was led into that by the hon. and gallant Member's interruption. If the hon. and gallant Member will go to certain Colonies he will see State hospitals which are very well run, and he will find that his observation is not true. And again this is a generation and racial problem; it is the old Herrenvolk idea, with a pink form of totalitarianism.

Mr. Emmott: Say it again.

Dr. Morgan: It is the old Herrenvolk idea with a pink form of totalitarianism. Has that gone in now? I raised with the Minister the question of federation and I was surprised to hear an old contemporary of mine at Glasgow University say to-day that he could not accept a principle like federation. I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), who, I know, is considered by


his friends to be rather an omnibus politician, had better stick to health, to Scotland, and to agriculture, if he is going make such mistakes as he is making over federation. He said that he did not believe in a general principle of this nature and that executive power should rest here. Well and good. But then he put forward the fantastic idea that an additional Under-Secretary of State should be appointed to go out to certain consolidated and, I presume, federated areas like West and East Africa. Some most amusing things are said in this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad that I am getting my speech across with a little humour and amusement.

Mr. Emmott: Speak a little more slowly.

Dr. Morgan: This House is a sounding board.

Mr. Granville: It is a listening post at the moment, not a sounding board.

Dr. Morgan: When I say virulent and violent things they are resented. Some time ago I sent the Minister some questions by people interested in the medical and nursing problems of Jamaica. They concerned a hospital, once a poor law hospital, which had been flooded with patients from another hospital because of the want of room. I put four questions to the Minister, from authentic sources, and he told me that he could not give me an answer at the time because he had not the information. Now I have his reply here. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read it."] No, it is too long. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not, with his usual clarity and honesty, say that I was right in what I said, except on two points. One of those was that untrained nurse attendants are not being paid 14s. a week but 16s., and I am sorry I made that mistake. I must have mistaken the figure "six" for the figure "four." Also I said that there were two pit latrines, instead of one. But every other fact in the letter was correct. This medical institution has one trained person, the matron. There are 262 patients there, the average being 242. There are one trained person, as I have said, and another person with a maternity certificate of training, and eight untrained attendants, two of whom are on night

duty. They take their meals in a dining room which is not screened from flies. The Minister told me that they have a rest room, bed and wash basin not far away. When I asked about pit latrines, a subject not mentioned in polite societies, he said there were two, but no lights. Does the Minister think that fair? Does he call that encouraging to a good Colonial nursing service? I know it is not his fault.

Colonel Stanley: My letter also stated the improvements which have been made.

Dr. Morgan: I was told the same sort of thing in 1929–31. When I was a Member for a London division I put the same sort of question and with great monotony of platitudinous somnolence I was told that conditions were being improved. I know that sort of answer so well—"It is having due consideration," "Improvements are being made," and, "Plans are being made." All this has been told me time after time. I know that things are getting better because more money is available now, but money is not the only thing that matters. In the area I know best, the Caribbean area, men have ambitions, they are asking for cultural and educational improvements and advancement. They are pressing the Government, but the Government are putting on the brake.
Let me again turn to leprosy, and to an article written by Dr. Muir. In certain Colonies like Barbados, leprosy is on the increase; there are more cases than in Jamaica, which has a much greater population. In Grenada they have reduced leprosy cases to 12, all of which are non-infective, and there are no child cases. What has been done? Not a word is said about this, Men have done good work out there. Not a pat on the back, publicly made to the medical officer in charge of the medical institution. I know what it means to these poor people, and to illegitimate mothers in places where maternity has become an industry. I know what it means to those who have no vote. In Barbados only one person in 35 has the vote. How long are we going to allow mammon-infested oligarchy on top to keep in certain allegedly self-governing Colonies the people below in a constant state of destitution and poverty?
Instead of the present mummiform multiformity and variety of Constitutions,


why not have a federation of the Windward and Leeward Islands? I challenge the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to have a plebiscite on whether they want federation, and I have no doubt what the verdict will be. There is no sanatorium for tuberculosis in Trinidad and the hospitals are still disgraceful in Antigua and San Fernando. Let us have a fair investigation. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is certainly doing the best he can, but I think, when a Member of the House puts a scheme before him for three years and the medical adviser to the Controller is reporting to his senior Colonial officers he might have the generosity to say that a certain doctor in Parliament interested in the West Indies put forward a scheme and it ought to be taken up. What hopes can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman offer to the people of British Guiana of a new Constitution which will enable them to do things for themselves? Welfare is not enough. They want to take an interest and get a training in public affairs and get some experience in self government. They are intensely loyal, devoted to the Empire and the Crown and full of admiration for democratic institutions. When are they going to be given the job? What hopes have they of a potable water system in Georgetown in British Guiana? They have been asking for it for years.
I did not go to the colonies as a tourist. They are described in tourist brochures as the finest places in the world, and so they are. There is beauty of scenery, an equitable climate and everything of the best. They could be made public paradises, as they used to be. Time and time again the whole of the people of certain of them have pressed for certain reforms. They have pressed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman with regard to dual control in denominational education. I have been approached by the Archbishop of the Port of Spain and the Vicar-General of St. Lucia to ask whether he would refuse to impose a secular system of education on a population the great majority of which want denominational education. All the ministers, Nonconformist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of England and Catholic, are united in favour of a denominational system, but we are imposing from the top on a voteless population a secular system. Why not see whether something like the Scottish

system, under which the Government own the schools, cannot be introduced? Questions of that kind—the medical services, transport and air transport—could be run on federal lines, things that cannot be run individually because they cannot stand the expense of it. I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to look at federation again from the point of view of education, using films and radio for adult and mass education through village settlements. It can be done. I do not know whether it can be done in Africa. I do not know Africa as well as I know the Carribees. I know them upside down. I lived there for fifteen years and I have been there several times since. The only hope of making that place a success is to have federal self government under a reserved constitution. If the right hon. Gentleman does that he will leave a name, which we hope he will leave, in the annals of the Colonial Office.

Captain Gammans: The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Fraser) earlier in the Debate made certain implications against the loyalty of our fellow subjects in Malaya who are not able to answer for themselves. I am glad that he has announced that he proposes to take an interest in the Colonies from now on, but he should certainly verify his facts before he makes a slanderous statement of that sort in the House.

Mr. Creech Jones: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman be more precise? What was the slanderous statement, and what criticism of the loyalty of the British subjects in Malaya was made?

Captain Gammans: The hon. Member complained about the inadequacy of the social services and went on to say that it was the dissatisfaction of the people of Malaya that was responsible for Singapore. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I certainly got the impression that he was imputing to the people of Malaya dissatisfaction with British rule. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nothing of the sort."] I should not wish to misquote the hon. Member, but I hope that that calumny may be laid for ever. I hope that before very long we shall be in a position to reconquer the country. We are going to ask the young men of this country and the Dominions to risk, and possibly to lay down, their lives to reconquer it. In what spirit are they going to do it? In the spirit of restoring liberty to their fellow British subjects, or


having it dinned into their ears that these people stabbed their comrades in the back at a vital stage of the war? It is most essential that the question should be settled. Malaya fell for one reason only; that there were not the arms there to defend it. If these imputations are to be made against the inhabitants of Malaya, it is equally applicable to make them against the inhabitants of Norway and Denmark.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is misrepresenting the remarks of my hon. Friend.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member has already made one very long speech, and it is only fair that other Members of the Committee should have some opportunity to take part in the Debate.

Dr. Morgan: I am surely entitled to defend a colleague when I think that his remarks are being wrongly interpreted.

The Deputy-Chairman: Yes, but I suggest, when there are a large number of Members who want to speak, that when an hon. Member has already made a considerable contribution to the Debate it is in the general interest that hon. Members should make their speeches and finish rather than have too many interruptions.

Dr. Morgan: Am I to understand that it is the Ruling of the Chair that, because a Member has made a considerable contribution to the Debate, he cannot seize the opportunity of making a correction when a colleague's remarks are being wrongly interpreted?

The Deputy-Chairman: That is not my position. What I suggested was that if a Member had made a long speech it would be a good thing if he did not interrupt, so that more Members could intervene in the Debate.

Dr. Morgan: I would agree with that, but I do not deserve your disapprobation.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans) aware that in the only detailed report of the operations in the loss of Singapore, the two regiments which received outstanding recognition were the Royal Malayan Regiment and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and that there was no calumny levelled against the Malayans in fighting for their own country?

Captain Gammans: I was not making that point. I drew the implication from what my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton said that he was reviving the story that went round the country two or three years ago about the loyalty of the inhabitants of Malaya, and as I spent many years of my life in that country I felt that I must refute it. However, I am pleased to have the assurance from his friends that he did not mean that.

Mr. Creech Jones: He did not say it.

Captain Gammans: I think he imputed it, anyway. The hon. Member for Hamilton said he hoped the Colonial Secretary would make a reference to the future of Hong-Kong. I hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman does nothing of the sort. It would be most unfortunate if, at this juncture of the war, any statement whatever was made about the future of Hong-Kong, or any other part of the Far East.
I would like to make a plea to my right hon. and gallant Friend, not for a statement on Colonial policy, which I do not think is necessary, but for a greater clarification of what he proposes to do to carry out that policy. I would like to make the plea, too, for some better machinery for carrying it out here at the centre. May I put it this way? Almost all his other colleagues in the Cabinet have during the past year come forward with far-reaching and inspiring plans for the future. We have had statements on housing, medicine, employment, education, and so on, and I am rather hoping that the Colonial Secretary will be able to come forward before long with some comprehensive and long-term plan for the future of the Colonial Empire. We do not need to argue about the principles on which we should develop the Empire. There are two. First, that we should do all in our power to promote self-government in the Colonial territories; second, that those territories should be developed in the economic sense for the benefit of their inhabitants.
I suggest that there is a third principle which has come much to the fore during the past year; that is the necessity for promoting unity, not only between this country and the Colonies, but between the Colonies themselves. We often say that we in this country know very little of the Colonies, but what I think is equally dis-


tressing, in some ways more so, is how little the Colonies know about each other. How little, for example, the people of Africa know about the West Indies, and how little the people of East Africa know about the Far East. We had an inspiring Debate a short time ago on the necessity for Empire unity. So far as unity in the Colonial Empire is concerned, as opposed to the Dominions, the responsibility for fostering it rests upon the Secretary of State for the Colonies and, in finality, on this House.
I want to put forward the suggestion that there is a need for clarification of our Colonial policy far a different reason. To-day the Colonies are in the news, and on the front page at that. The days are over when we could conduct our Colonial affairs in a sort of vacuum, when all the public expected was that the Colonial Secretary should come to the House once a year and give an account of his stewardship. We have taken down the ringed fence, and we have to do still more. There are to-day three sections of public opinion which are vitally interested in the future of the Colonies. First, there is world opinion, and especially the interest of the United States. I would be the first to admit that many of the criticisms of many of our American friends are unfair, and to a certain extent, among a certain section of the community, are inspired by malice; but even among the vast majority of the American public who are well disposed towards us there is a deplorable ignorance of what we are attempting to do or what we have done. If they know little about our Colonial achievements the fault is perhaps ours for not telling them.
The second section is the opinion of the people here at home. I am glad to see that at last the British public are becoming increasingly conscious of their Colonial responsibilities. I think that to a certain extent that has arisen out of admiration for what the Colonies have done in the war. The British public have realised that Allies come and Allies go. It is only 25 years since we were talking about "the gallant little Japs." It is the British Empire countries upon which alone we can rely in the long run, and I think the British public realise that. I believe that they will be prepared to tax themselves to an increasing degree, as my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr.

Shinwell) suggested, but I do not believe they will do it in a blind sort of way. They will not do it unless we can lay before them definite plans for the development of the Colonies as a whole. Lastly, we have the opinion of the Colonial peoples themselves. One of the things that worries me with regard to our relationship with the Colonies is that I do not think that, on the whole, we are carrying the Colonial intelligentsia with us. The tendency for them is to follow what has happened in India. The tragedy of India in the last two generations is that the best brains have been lost in the arid desert of agitation and have not been available for social and economic reforms. There is a danger that the same thing may happen in our Colonial territories.
How can we get the co-operation and understanding of these three branches of public opinion? The best way it can be done is for my right hon. and gallant Friend to come to the House, as his other colleagues have done in other directions, and state his long-term programme. What could that programme contain? I will not go into it in detail but I would like to suggest these points. I am one of those who feel that we ought to try to get a proper imperial currency. I cannot imagine why it is necessary for us to continue with the hotch-potch of dollars, rupees and all sorts of coinage of varying denominations. Why cannot we have one imperial currency? I think, too, that there ought to be a certain minimum standard of social services. There is a great disparity as between different Colonies. Surely there is a minimum at which we should aim in medical services, health services, workmen's compensation and the like.
The third point is education. What is our Colonial educational policy? I suppose that in a short-term sense it is to make people literate. A lot can be done there by a mass attack on illiteracy, but that is not enough. Education policy does not merely stop at making people literate. It is surely a failure unless it makes men good agriculturists, develops local powers of leadership and engenders pride in local traditions and customs. If we apply that test to our educational achievements of the past 20 or 25 years, or longer, in many parts of the Colonial Empire, there is much that we find unsatisfactory. We have transplanted our


own education system into a tropical setting, and on the whole it has not been a great success. One of the worst things we ever did was to introduce the Cambridge local examinations as a sort of standard of gentility. We made the African a dissatisfied African without making him a satisfied anything.
The next point is with regard to defence. We often have paid tribute to what has been done by Colonial regiments in the war, and a pretty wonderful story it is. They have shown that not only are they willing to share the burden of Empire defence, but that they are capable of doing it. Is all that to be lost when the war is over? Are we just to go back to our few regiments in Africa and in other parts of the world? Cannot we have a proper Defence Council, so that it will feel that it has a share of the defence of the Empire?
My last plea is with regard to economics. We cannot be satisfied with the economic development of the Colonies unless we have a proper economic development Board here in London upon which each Colony has direct representation. It is true that we have the Colonial Welfare and Development Act and that certainly was a move in the right direction, but it has been suggested to-day that that is all that is required. Personally, I do not think so. There are definite limitations to that Act. It is too short-term in its application. To a certain extent the tendency is for it to operate only when something is starting to go wrong. It is not part of an economic plan. Perhaps its greatest handicap is that the Colonial peoples themselves feel no sense of responsibility for its operation. It savours too much of doling out money from Westminster.
I have come to the conclusion that there are certainly four great questions in the economic field that cannot be solved properly on the present basis. One of them is the question of secondary industries. The right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) said that the industrial revolution is coming to Africa. It surely is. How is it to come? In the same way that it came to us? Are we to realise there the horrors that have come to this country in the last 150 years, through lack of planning? I do not believe that, under the present aegis of the Colonial Welfare and Development

Act, we can get secondary industries developed in the light of the experience that we have gone through. We need something more comprehensive than that. The same will apply to broadcasting and——

Colonel Stanley: Will my hon. and gallant Friend say what this Board will do?

Captain Gammans: I will come to that in a moment. In regard to broadcasting I knew that in our Colonial Empire we lagged very far behind the rest of the world, but until I went to the West Indies the other day I had no idea how far behind. Broadcasting is not merely a means of telling people the news and of amusing them; it is the best method yet devised for adult education and for imparting technical knowledge. How is that to be developed? Is it to be done Colony by Colony? I now turn to civil aviation. Whatever may be developed over the trunk lines of the world, as between territory and territory and island and island, development must remain British, and the Colonial people themselves should have their say in what is to happen.
The last point is in some ways the most important. What is to be the future of the investment of outside capital in these Colonies? I know it is the fashion to-day to talk about exploitation. The truth is, of course, that the Colonies which have attracted the most outside capital enjoy the highest standard of living. But I suggest that the day has gone by when capital may be invested without any sort of regulation, without any sense that it fits into a plan and without any assurance that it pays its fair share of local taxation. My right hon. and gallant Friend interrupted me a moment ago and asked what the Board was going to do. That is a very big subject, but my answer is shortly this: The Board is to be responsible for the various things I have mentioned, done in a co-ordinated way as between island and island and territory and territory. I admit that it would need a proper technical staff and a competent secretariat.

Colonel Stanley: Does my hon. and gallant Friend suggest that this Board-will consist of representatives from each one of the 40 Colonies but will be responsible for the economic development of only one of them?

Captain Gammans: No, I think my right hon. and gallant Friend has taken me a little literally. When I said "direct representation of the Colonies" I was not suggesting direct representations from each territory or each island, but perhaps for each block of territories. There is a case for a Board of that sort, which to a certain extent my right hon. and gallant Friend has now. It would have some responsibility under him for the proper co-ordination of economic work. Let me give one example. The thing that struck me about British Guiana was that the first thing needed was a thorough survey of its mineral resources and agricultural possibilities but it is no one's particular job to do it, except the Government of British Guiana. Under these five different heads I feel that my right hon. and gallant Friend could do something, and produce a very inspiring programme. I am not suggesting that that is all. I hope he will be able to tell us of the work that is being carried on by the women officers of the Civil Service. I think we all agree that we cannot raise the social level of any community above that of its women. Far more can be done in that direction.
I do not want my right hon. and gallant Friend to feel that I am criticising his administration or that of the Colonial Office. On the contrary, I feel a greater sense of confidence to-day than I have felt for many years past. I believe that feeling is shared by many hon. Members. I was a Colonial servant myself for many years, and I know that the Crown is served by no more devoted and loyal men. During the last 20-odd years they have been asked to fight a sort of rearguard action. They have not known exactly what they were supposed to be doing, but it has been a sort of rearguard action of political concession and economic improvisation. There has not been a sort of blue print of what they had to do. Too often, things were only done when matters had gone wrong.
We cannot solve our Colonial problems merely by doling out Constitutions either in response to political clamour on the spot or unpractical idealism at home. Now, I believe very sincerely, is the time when we can take a great step forward. The foundation of our association with the Colonial peoples has been well and truly laid by those who have gone before. Our association together has been sanctified by

blood shed in two wars. Now is the time when we can build on those foundations a permanent world order which will be of benefit, not only to ourselves and the Colonial people, but, I think, of benefit to the whole world.

Mr. Emmott: The hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken has a large and detailed knowledge of this subject, and he never discusses it without adding much to the knowledge of the Committee. His speech to-day has been no exception to that general principle, but I do not propose to follow him on any special points he has raised, as the time is now abbreviated and the Minister has to reply. I wish to offer to the Committee one or two remarks upon one point,' or possibly two, which are of great practical present interest to the Colonial Empire. The first is the question of recruitment to the Colonial Service. The Colonial Service has, through the call upon it of the Armed Services of the Crown, lost large numbers in this war. The first particular point I want to make is that it seems to me certain that after the end of this war the many wide economic development schemes, which will require to be put into operation in the Colonies, will require a considerable increase in the staff of the Colonial Service. I am thinking not only of administrative officers, officers whose work might he generally described as political in its nature; I am thinking more of surveyors, irrigation engineers, agricultural experts and men of that sort, who will surely be needed in large numbers for the preparation, supervision and management of development schemes.
It is, surely, obvious that expensive development schemes should not be undertaken without careful preliminary investigation. There is great pressure in this Committee now, and rightly so, for the expenditure of large sums of money in the Colonies after the war. How things have changed in recent years! How difficult it was only a few years ago to obtain, if not sanction, at any rate general approval for the expenditure of large sums of money. But the pressure is now all the other way. All the argument is for the expenditure of more and more money. That will be necessary, but there is a certain danger that, under pressure of this


kind of argument, there may be a tendency to embark on great schemes of economic development with insufficient preliminary examination. It will be a false economy and a very wrongful waste of money if expensive schemes of Colonial development are undertaken without sufficient preliminary investigation. All this work requires additional staff. Further, there has been in recent years, and will be after the war a considerable retirement of the older men, many of whom have remained at their posts during the war when otherwise they would have retired. These men have often remained in unhealthy climates, separated from their families, at the call of duty. When the war ends they will go. Of the younger men, too, surely many of them who have done long tours of duty without any interruption will require extended periods of rest and recuperation.
All these factors will result, at the end of the war, in a considerable shortage in the Colonial Service. I want to ask particularly whether the Colonial Office now has in preparation plans to fill the vacancies that will then arise, and if it has, what is their general nature. These plans must have been considered already. It will be too late to embark on considering them when the war ends. The emergency will then be upon us. They must be ready now to be put into operation the moment the fighting ceases.
The Appointments Department of the Colonial Office, as is well known, has discharged its task with great efficiency and imagination. I suppose it has been very much hampered by circumstances which there is no need to detail. There can have been no more than a slight trickle of recruitment into the Colonial Service in recent years and months. I express the hope that the Appointments Department of the Colonial Office will be in a position to resume its full activities in recruiting for the Colonial Service of the earliest possible moment. I ask with some diffidence whether it would be possible even to begin the selection of likely entrants into the Colonial Service now, before hostilities cease. There may well be men who have been disabled by the war, but who are not so seriously disabled as to abandon the prospect of a Colonial career. There may be other categories of persons also whose eyes are already turned in that direction. Would it be possible to have a kind of prelimi-

nary selection of candidates drawn from such categories?
There is one other point under the heading of recruitment to which I would like to make reference: that is the type of training and instruction which I understand is required to be undertaken by would-be entrants for at least some appointments in the Colonial Service. A good deal has been said in other Debates, and something has been said in this Debate, about subjects which are now very much in the mind of the House. One is the increasing importance of economic subjects in our modern life, the increasing importance of men having more than a merely superficial knowledge of economic and commercial questions, both in the Diplomatic Service and the Colonial Service. The other is the increasing importance of agriculture both in domestic and Colonial life. I should be the last man to depreciate the importance or the value, to those who can profit from it, of a literary education, but it may well be that the type of instruction, the type of training, which was appropriate to a period when knowledge of these subjects was less important is no longer so appropriate for men, many of whom will have to pass the most active period of their lives among the peasantry in the West Indies, or in Africa, as training of a type which will give them a practical knowledge of agriculture, training, generally speaking, of a type which will give them a good, sound, general knowledge of economic and commercial questions. There was one other point on which I should have liked to have said something, but I do not wish to stand between the Committee and the Secretary of State; so I conclude with an expression of the hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman may find it convenient to say something upon the points that I have mentioned.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): I am only too sorry that the hon. Gentleman's speech was cut short, in order to give me time to reply to the Debate. I think he was the only Member who dealt with the very important point of the recruitment and training of the Colonial Service after the war. He will not expect me to go into the question fully now. I will content myself with saying that I well recognise the great deal of recruitment which will


be needed directly after the war, both to replace the people who will then retire and to bring a very much understaffed service up to strength, and to bring in the new conditions we have in mind. I agree that plans cannot be made in a day. We have given considerable thought to them. We have plans which are far advanced, and which we shall be in a position to complete at a more appropriate time than this, when we are at the very crisis of the war. That will be when we have learnt more of the actual problems of demobilisation. We have to consider not only the training of the immediate applicants after the war, which will have to be of a special character, but the general training of recruits in peace-time., We shall bear in mind the need for practical instruction in agriculture and the understanding by everybody of the broad principles of modern economic thought.
If I may turn to the Debate as a whole, I would say how glad I am that Members, through the usual channels, asked for another discussion on the Colonies. I hope that it will be a settled practice now to have at least two days Debate—and I hope more. May I make this suggestion? If, in fact, it becomes an accepted practice that we are allowed more than one day for the discussion of Colonial affairs in the House of Commons, wonder whether it would not add a great deal to the value of the Debate if we could, by some arrangement among ourselves, while devoting one day to a general discussion, try to confine subsequent days to the discussion of problems affecting particular geographical areas or particular functional subjects. I speak with some concern, because, having to wind up the Debate to-day, which, although interesting, has roamed over a considerable number of subjects and of parts of the world, I feel how ragged and therefore unsatisfactory my reply will have to be. There is another thing that I may be excused for saying. Had one been in a position to introduce into the Chamber to-day a visitor from Mars, during the period when the Committee was interrupted for other Business and also at another time; and had one told him that at one time the House was discussing an important matter, it is true, but a matter which affects one particular unit in this country, consisting of perhaps a few

thousand people, and that at the other time the Committee were discussing Colonial affairs, in which 60,000,000 were concerned; and then, had one asked him to guess, from the attendance, which subject we were discussing at which time, I wonder if he would have guessed right.
Perhaps I may start by referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley). He had three main points. The first was the question of the Advisory Committees. He complained that, although he did not call into question at all the qualifications of the members of those Advisory Committees, it was—I noted his exact words—typical of my attitude towards Members of Parliament on Colonial questions that I had included only four of them. The inference of that, of course, is that I am always trying to exclude Members of Parliament, by every possible means, from any influence in Colonial affairs. I leave that to Members as a whole to decide. These are advisory bodies of experts on particular subjects; I am only too glad when there is a Member of Parliament who has the technical qualifications on any subject which enable him to hold his own in a discussion on that subject.

Mr. Riley: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman could get medical advisers from among Members of Parliament.

Colonel Stanley: I should be prepared to discuss the medical qualifications of anybody in this House compared with the medical qualifications of anybody on the committee.

Dr. Morgan: I doubt whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is competent to do it.

Colonel Stanley: No, I am not; but, at any rate, I am disinterested.

Dr. Morgan: Perhaps.

Colonel Stanley: I am only too anxious to have the help of Members of Parliament, and their interest in Colonial affairs. I want, above all, to give them an opportunity of getting to know the Colonies, of visiting them,. and of taking an interest in them. I want ample opportunities for debate and question and answer in this House. Members of the House of Commons, I think, should be helping to deal with broad lines of general policy, particularly on the political side, rather than with these technical


questions. Above all, I do not want the situation to arise when it is said, "You have put a member of that party on a particular technical committee, and so you must have a member of the other party," and then it is said, "That leaves out the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely, and you must have him on." [Interruption.] I mentioned the hon. Member only because he happens to be the only Member of his party present. Then, gradually, what had started as an expert committee becomes a party political committee. But I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept my assurance that I welcome every sign of interest taken by every hon. Member in this House, and I think hon. Members will agree that at all times I have been only too ready to listen to arid accept their advice.
Another point that the hon. Gentleman raised was the question of the machinery with regard to development. I do not know whether he was speaking for his party or with their authority, but I rather imagine, from the expression on the faces of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that he was not. He wanted a development authority in this country, with executive powers, which should be charged with carrying through schemes, and which, apparently, therefore, would decide on the scheme and would put it into operation, quite apart from whether the local Government wanted it or not.

Mr. Riley: I twice specifically said, "Under the direction of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman,. as Secretary of State."

Colonel Stanley: Under my direction—but there may be a scheme for building a school in Jamaica, and it is not going to be done by the Jamaican Government. There are the particular principles to be agreed with me for help under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act. I want them to decide where the school is to be, what numbers they are to have in the school and what type of school it is to be. I do not want a board sitting in London——

Mr. Riley: I also said specifically in cooperation with the local Colonial Government.

Colonel Stanley: What on earth does that mean?—a board in London, to whom we give executive powers, like the Ten-

nessee Valley Authority, and yet say it is only to work in co-operation with the local authority. Had not the local authorities better do it themselves? I feel that, in all this discussion on strengthening the machinery in London—and heaven knows I do not think it is perfect, and I am perfectly prepared to listen to suggestions for strengthening it—we must always bear in mind that more and more of these things are going to be decided and carried out, not in London, but in the Colonies by the people for whom they are intended, who are going to make use of them and to whose lives they are going to make the greatest difference. In considering our machinery in London, therefore, we must remember the part to be played in planning the schemes on the ground itself.
Hon. Members have also raised the question of a Joint Parliamentary Committee. I want to associate Members of Parliament with this work, but let me state quite frankly my objection to this proposal. I think it was suggested by Lord Samuel, whose idea was that a Joint Committee of 10 Members from another place and 10 hon. Members of this House should visit the Colonies, make reports and take a general interest in Colonial affairs. In Colonial affairs in this House, I do not want just 10 selected Members to have all the opportunities of going abroad, of hearing evidence, of writing reports, because, I know that, if that happens, other hon. Members will begin to feel that Colonial affairs have been taken out of their hands and given to these 10 people, who would get all the interesting jobs, with the result that other hon. Members would not bother. When it comes to the question of the future amount a the development grant, and the question of this House supporting money for the Colonies which other people may be asking should be spent in social services here, I would rather have the support of the general body of hon. Members of the House than the expert interest of just 10 Members of this Committee, and it is because of that that I am opposed to this particular proposal.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) went into a number of questions connected with West Africa on rather broad lines. There is, I think, one particular point to which I would call attention. The right hon. and gallant


Gentleman said that an industrial revolution is coming to West Africa. I do not think he means to conjure up the idea that as we, in the early part of the 19th century, changed from a country predominantly agricultural into one predominantly industrial, so, after the war, something of that kind will happen in West Africa. There is going to be no industrial revolution in that sense, but a considerable increase in secondary industries and in industrial work. West Africa, however, will remain for a very long time predominantly agricultural in character, and it is predominantly upon the development of its agriculture and the better use of its agricultural resources, whether land or human resources, that West Africans will depend for an increased standard of life. But even this industrialisation and this increase in the workers employed in industry will, I quite agree, come with a fearful impact upon the tribal customs and conditions built up to meet quite different circumstances, and we have seen what a fearful effect it can have if, without any preparation at all, modern industrial conditions are allowed to impinge upon ancient tribal lives built up on a different basis and defenceless against the new conditions.
It is largely for that reason that I have set up this new Social Science Research Council to try to see if we can, before the thing happens, realise what the effect is likely to be on the social life of the people and prepare for it in advance. Preparation is one of the most important factors in the industrialisation that is coming.
The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) referred to the problems of demobilisation, and I was very glad when I found him saying something which I have already impressed on Colonial Governments. We do not want this demobilisation just to make jobs for returned soldiers. We want to have plans of development which will be useful, desirable and essential in themselves and will absorb whatever labour is available. That is the task which Colonial Governments are facing now. The hon. Member asked "How soon will they be ready? "Of course, they are not all at the same stage. Some Governments are considerably more advanced than others, but they are pressing on, and I believe they will be ready in time, but, quite frankly, my

difficulty is the difficulty of personnel and not the lack of desire to get on.
This work has to be done either by taking one or two people from current work, which they are doing under very difficult conditions of over-work, or by asking people who are already working overtime on very essential jobs, to take a few hours for this planning work. I think the Committee will appreciate that they are working under very great difficulties, and I should like to express my gratitude for the way they are adding this new burden to the one they are already bearing.
My hon. Friend also made reference, as did the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb), in connection with the demobilisation problem, to the magnificent human material, to whom we owe a debt, and from whom we can constantly expect work which really redounds to the interests of the Colonies. I should like to associate myself with the tributes they paid. I have recently been provided with an account of some of the things that West African troops have been doing in Burma. At this stage, it is too long to give to the Committee in full, and I should not like to take bits out of it, but I will be making it public as soon as possible.
Hon. Members will realise that I cannot answer every point, but there is one with which I would like to deal. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely referred' to the White Paper on the disposal of Government stores and to the fact that the Colonial Empire was not mentioned in it. I have been on to that, too, and the reason is that the White Paper really does not begin to operate until the Government Departments here and in the Colonial Empire have had their say. It is only when things are not wanted by the Government, and that includes any demands made by Colonial Governments, that the machinery of the White Paper will come into effect. I am glad that he called attention to that fact, because it gives me an opportunity to make the position clear. They will have an opportunity of putting in their demands for anything they want and settling the terms on which it is handed over before the White Paper machinery takes effect.
The hon. and gallant Member for Preston referred to the Colonial public debt and the high rates of interest charged for loans raised just after the last war.


The rates were high, but rates of interest were high generally. Some conversions are now being made, and if it is possible for the Colonies to raise loans I have no reason to suppose that they will not get extremely low and favourable rates.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred in part of his speech to the question of Malaya. I am not going into the controversy of what he said or meant by that, but it is obvious from the hon. Member's statement and the interjections from the other side that all of us now dismiss the idea which was current and was put about that Malaya was lost because of the disaffection of the Malayans. We ought to recognise that Malaya was lost because we were beaten in the field. There was one point he made with regard to the lack of sources of information for hon. Members and the public generally who are interested in the Colonies now. It is true, and I admit it. I shall be only too glad when we can go back to the pre-war practice of annual Colonial reports. They might add a great deal of reality and urgency to the Debates in this House. On the one occasion that we had a document to discuss—the Stock-dale Report—it made the task of hon. Members very much easier.

Mr. Mathers: And of much greater interest.

Colonel Stanley: It is impossible to have the annual report in view of the shortage of staff I have now, but I have already said that as soon as possible after the war it will be resumed.

Captain P. Macdonald: There was another document, prepared by a predecessor of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, which was called "The Census of Production" into which a great deal of labour was put, and since the war that census has not been kept up to date, but I hope that, as soon as possible after the war, it will be issued again.

Colonel Stanley: I shall review all the ways of giving information afterwards and I promise hon. Members that I will give them the fullest information possible. I cannot recall the actual document or whether it was in the best possible form or not, and I shall have to look into it.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) dealt with the question of federation. We have to be

very careful of generalisations about the Colonial Empire and of saying that, because in different parts of the world there are different blocks of territory which look to be close together, the same solution is applicable to all of them. It is not. The difficulty of communications to which hon. Members have referred in the past has made each unit grow in a different way. I want to see the biggest integration practicable of those Colonies in the various regions referred to, but in getting that we have to take account of political sentiment, political difficulties and the circumstances of the particular region, and nothing is more fatal than to force upon people federation for which they are either unready or which ignores practical difficulties either in economic circumstances or political affairs.
With regard to the West Indies, which is a subject of great interest to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan), it is our declared policy to get the greatest integration that the people of those islands themselves want. A good deal of progress has been made in recent years in getting discussions, conferences and decisions upon an all-island or all Caribbean basis, which is the beginning of any scheme of closer political union. We are to have two interesting tests in the near future of how far the sentiment in the various West Indian Colonies really stands up to the test of a closer political union. There will be a recommendation in some form—I do not know what form it will take—for a university for the West Indies; and further, I have asked all Governments to discuss the question of currency as applicable to the West Indies as a whole. Let us see how we get on with this kind of thing and that will give us an idea of how much feeling of unity of interests there is. I am sure that it is growing, and that it is going on growing and that eventually we shall get a very much closer state of both political and economic co-operation than we have today. The one thing which might delay or even, in the end, entirely destroy that prospect would be to force a decision too early.

Dr. Morgan: What about the medical services and the legal services? Surely such interchanges are possible.

Colonel Stanley: These improvements in communications are very recent and in war time they are still not very real, as


some hon. Members know better than I do, but I gather that there is still a good deal of ignorance, and not always a great deal of admiration in one island for either the services or the administration of another, and this kind of feeling has to be broken down.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) made a speech from which I am not likely to dissent, because he asked for more money. I have already told the Committee on several occasions that I do not believe we can possibly discharge our responsibility towards the Colonial Empire in the way we ought upon the sums laid down in the present Act of Parliament. My belief is that when this House is told what we think would be the proper sum it will be prepared to support it, even at some sacrifice to itself. If it is not, then all this pretence of interest in Colonial development would be a farce. But I am anxious before I raise the subject to proceed further with these long-term plans now coming in from all the Colonies, so that I shall have some basis for saying what I believe to be the sums which will be required. When that time comes, I am sure that I shall have a favourable, kindly hearing from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the substantial and unanimous support of this House.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) raised two main questions. With the question of afforestation it is difficult, I think, at this stage to deal in detail, except to say that I know the importance of the forestry problem is well appreciated by the Nigerian Government and will form part of their comprehensive plan. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, it is not only the possibility of the commercial use of timber either for export—which may be a possibility—or for developing local uses, but it is useful for preventive arrangements and, above all, for the provision of firewood for many of the people of Nigeria. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has been up to the plateau, but the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) certainly has, and anything more dismal than this immense, treeless plain, where every tree has been cut down, every root has been dug up, in order to provide firewood for the inhabitants, can-

not be imagined. It is encouraging to see there quite small, unambitious, but promising experiments in simple re-afforestation, not for the purpose of selling mahogany woods in competition with Sweden, but to give the people who live there something to burn and something with which to cook their meals. That, I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me, is just as important a side of forestry as the more ambitious scheme.

Earl Winterton: It also affects the question of the Southern march of the Saharan Desert.

Colonel Stanley: Enormously, of course. It is an essential part of development work. He then dealt with the question of Mandated Territories. He probably had the same experience as I had in West Africa, and I believe the hon. Gentleman will come to the same conclusion as I did. In point of fact the two main blocks of mandated territory in West Africa—the Cameroons, administered as part of Nigeria, and Togoland, administered as part of the Gold Coast—were the most backward part of those two Colonies respectively, and that came about for very simple and natural reasons. First of all, no private capital would go into an area whose future was so uncertain; secondly, when the Government had money to spend on capital development, on the building of schools or roads, it was not an unnatural inclination to put that money into the part of the territory they were administering which they knew was remaining permanently British, rather than this part whose future was uncertain. I certainly think that at the end of the war, in co-operation with other nations signatory to these treaties, the whole position must be reviewed. Of one thing I am certain—I do not believe there is any British Government which contemplates now, or would contemplate, divesting themselves of responsibility for these territories. It is only on that basis, I think, that any adequate planning can be done, or any adequate life developed for the inhabitants.
With regard to the Congo Basin Treaties, there, again, it is a difficult, complex subject. I do not want to go into it at any length, but for countries which are rapidly ceasing to be the mere dependencies they were at the time when


these Treaties were first signed, and are developing towards a form of self-government and control of their own economic fiscal system, they would seem to be rather antiquated. They impose the open door upon the Colony but they do not exact in return the open door for Colonial products in the countries which make use of these treaties.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochdale made some reference to a little controversy we had over the question of the medical service. I am very glad to hear that the words he used in a previous Debate—which I must still confess seemed to me capable of bearing the construction I put upon them—were not intended to apply to the personnel of the service, but merely to its administration. I am very glad to hear him say that, because there are many devoted people in this service, and to leave them under any misapprehension that a thing like that was said about them in the House would have been a great pity. The hon. Gentleman has now made it clear that he never intended to refer to them, and I am very glad to hear that. When he refers to the medical administration and asks me if it is completely satisfactory, of course I am not going to say that I am satisfied with the state to-day of the medical services in all the Colonies. There is a tremendous lot to be done, but in order to do it we want two things—men and money—and at the present moment, although we can get the money, we cannot get the men.

Dr. Morgan: Local interest and education are also wanted.

Colonel Stanley: One cannot, of course, separate any one form of social service from the other. Unless we develop the economic and the educational side, however much is spent on the medical side will be largely wasted. We have to develop all three together. I would like to take this opportunity of acknowledging the help which the hon. Gentleman gave me with regard to the nursing scheme to which he referred, which I hope will be a considerable success.
Finally, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans) made an interesting speech with regard to publicity—I mean that in the best sense—for our Colonial policy. The hon. and gallant Gentleman speaks with a great deal of experience, because

he has taken a great deal of trouble and met with a great deal of success in explaining our Colonial policy in the United States of America. He asked for some kind of White Paper such as other Ministers have issued. My trouble is this. The Minister of Health issues a White Paper about health, but I should have to issue a White Paper about health, education, economic development, and I should have to do it for 50 different territories. I have tried in several speeches, including one in the House, to set out the broad lines of Government policy towards the Colonies, and I do not want merely to repeat broad statements of principle or of pious intentions. What I want to get down to now are brass tacks—not just saying we want to develop the medical service, but to get down to saying what hospitals there are going to be and where, and how many medical officers there will be. That is the purpose of the development committees now set up in all the Colonies. I believe that when these plans have been finally agreed, and are put together, there will be a really fine development programme for 10 years and a real justification of British Colonial policy.
I have only one word to say in conclusion. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham was good enough in the course of his speech to refer to me and say that he believed that I was anxious to make a success of my job. Well, I want it above everything in the world. I want it because I believe that this job, and the success of our administration, are of immense importance to millions of people all over the world. Not only is it important to the 60,000,000 people in the Colonies whose standard of life, whose future, whose political development and, above all, whose friendship with us will largely depend upon the course of administration in the next few years, but it is of immense importance to the 40,000,000 people or so in this country. I believe, in the long run, that it is just as important to them as it is to the 60,000,000, because the Colonial Empire, economically developed to a higher social standard, with a loyalty which comes from common interests and a common point of view, will add immensely to the power of this country for good in the world of the future, and give immense opportunity to strengthen our own eco-


nomy, not at the expense of the economy of the Colonies, but in co-operation with them and to our mutual advantage.

Ordered:
That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[Captain McEwen.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

GERMAN WAR CRIMES (RETRIBUTION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]

Captain Cunningham-Reid: I intended to raise on this Adjournment questions concerning the flying bomb, but I am now, with the permission of Mr. Speaker, raising the question of retribution. The reason for my change I hope to deal with a little later.
As the war comes to its climax, and the enemy commits even fouler atrocities, the question of retribution has become one of major concern. The Government find it difficult to make any detailed pronouncement on this subject, because they have to reconcile their policy, if any, with the policies of the United States and of Russia. But that is no reason why back benchers should not express their views, and express the views of what they consider to be the majority of their constituents. The nation was deeply moved by the horrors of the annihilation of the whole village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia, by the torturing of simple peasants and their children in Russia, and by the extermination, in gas chambers, of thousands of Hungarian Jews. But all this took place so far away from England that there was an air of unreality about it all, and there were even some who felt that these stories might be exaggerated.
Recently, however, what others have had to suffer has been brought more home to us because the incidents have been nearer to our homes. Only the other day and, comparatively speaking, only a few miles away from London Bridge, the Germans massacred every inhabitant of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane. The men were shot in batches of 20, and

women and children were blown up and then burned to death in the church. Elsewhere, a French butcher, for being patriotic, was spiked through the throat on his own meathook, while he was alive. Fifty Royal Air Force prisoners of war were cold-bloodedly put to death, and the day before yesterday we heard of another 33 prisoners being killed by these fiends. I think that brings the total of our prisoners who have been murdered by the Germans up to 152.
But what brought many people to what I might term a final sense of reality was this indiscriminate robot bombing, the mutilation of old and young folk on our very doorsteps, so to speak. I warrant that there are fewer people to-day who cherish kind and forgiving thoughts to the German people or claim that after the war we should merely educate them to be good children and not do it again. I regret though that there remain a number of sentimental idealists who still complacently think that we can prevent the Hun from starting another war by leaving Germany intact except for the fact that we shall be policing it awhile with a mixed force from the main victorious Powers. Such people utterly refuse to be realists and to contemplate what would happen under such a policy when the Isolationists in America prevail and insist that the American contribution to the forces of occupation should pull out of European commitments, as occurred soon after the last war, and when we have a left wing Government controlled by sloppy idealists.

Mr. Tinker: What is meant by that? A Labour Government would be left wing but it would not be governed by sloppy idealists.

Captain Cunningham-Reid: I am not referring to any Government that the hon. Member is likely to be in. One can well understand the kind of sentiments which will be put forward, and which I do not anticipate from quite a number of my friends on the present Socialist Benches. I refer to the type of persons that will bleat that we ought to "live and let live," that there ought to be good will towards all men, and that we should give our brothers, the Germans, a chance. If people such as that rule us out comes the British share of the international police force, when only Russia will remain. If Russia finally goes out from such a force, there is nothing to stop the Germans start-


ing to organise again for the next war, or alternatively—and you can take your choice—if Russia remains on her own, by then Germany will for certain have gone Communistic and will sooner or later be absorbed by Russia. For by that time the two countries will have converged on approximately the same ideology and the process of assimilation will have been smoothed because, as most Members are aware, Russia has been making unceasing radio and leaflet overtures to the German people for a long time past. The reaction in Germany to such constant overtures to the German people is bound to be that there is hope and some future for them from the East as compared with what they can expect from the West, whence there only blows a chilly reminder of unconditional surrender, and all that Goebbels has told them that implies.
So much for the prospects of an international police force. What then remains to prevent Germany from starting a sixth major war within 100 years? There is a suggestion to divide up Germany into States. What a childish solution! Imagine for a moment if the Germans had been successful in this war and they had decided to divide up this country. Suppose they divided the British Isles into East Anglia, the West Country and so on. We know that it would only be a matter of time before we got together again under the same Government. That is exactly what would happen in Germany if we attempted to divide it up into States.
To my mind there is only one practical solution. The growing temper of this country and the driving course of events in Europe are more and more going to impress this solution on the world. Do what we like, the Russians have made clear to everybody what they intend to have as frontiers after the war. They have been quite open in saying that they intend to have back their old frontiers. The old frontiers that existed before the last war took up practically the whole of what we knew as Poland. When it has been asked, "What's to happen to Poland?" they have replied that Poland must move West, that a part of Germany can become Poland. They have gone so far as to suggest that the new Polish boundary should be up to the Oder river at the least. This possibility is evidently recognised by the Prime Minister—it might have been the Foreign Secretary—when replying to a Question concerning the

scope of the Atlantic Charter, for he said that frontiers were not inviolate. We know that Denmark is to be rewarded for the gallant stand she has put up against tremendous odds by having returned to her the State of Schleswig-Holstein, which used to be in Denmark's possession. It has also been officially announced that Austria will no longer be a part of Germany but is to become an entity on her own again. It has been made clear by our leaders that the frontier of France must, for security purposes, be the Rhine. The net result, whether hon. Members like it or not, is that only about half of what was Germany will remain. It will be a trunk with its limbs dismembered; an area seething with longing for revenge even greater, if possible, than would be engendered in a bellicose and hating race which has lost two world wars in 30 years; an area which, sooner or later, will become an inflamed organising centre for a repetition of the atrocities that Europe is experiencing now but 100 times worse.
The only way to prevent this menace to peace is once and for all to do away with such a hub of friction and trouble. Germany must be completely divided up between the countries that surround her. Such a procedure would remove the complications and precariousness of an international police force, with the attendant possibility that the Isolationists in America and a weak Government over here will recall their forces of occupation. Under the solution that I am advocating, it will not matter if the march of time dims our memories and produces leniency, for the responsibility of what to do with Germany will then be out of our hands. The countries around that part of the world which was Germany, would not give up in a hurry territory which had been German, and that had been ceded to them by peace treaty.

Mr. Bartle Bull: Is the hon. and gallant Member quite certain that these countries would accept these parts of Germany?

Hon. Members: Yes.

Captain Cunningham-Reid: Yes, I think a number of countries would do so. For example, Holland is far too small in Europe and would, I believe, welcome more territory.

Mr. Bull: France, I agree, but what about the others?

Captain Cunningham-Reid: I said Holland. Belgium could do with more, and the territory of Czechoslovakia could, with advantage, be increased.

Earl Winterton: Might I interrupt the hon. and gallant Member, in order to strengthen his argument? Is it not a fact that a great deal of modern Germany is country which has been stolen from other countries in the past; and is it not certain that those countries are going to get it back, whether the Socialist Party like it or not?

Captain Cunningham-Reid: That is perfectly true. I would like to answer more questions, but I do not think I shall have sufficient time. I merely want to emphasise the point that the countries that had had parts of Germany added to them by Treaty would not be likely to give them up without a fight; and who is going to precipitate a war again, especially on behalf of a Germany? If, for example, the once-upon-a-time Germans, in that part of Germany which had been ceded to Poland, tried to start trouble, with underground organising and such like, the Poles no doubt would know how to deal with them. Nothing less than the extinction of Germany as a nation will prevent her nationals getting together again and organising another war. To the non-realists in our midst this solution may sound drastic, but it is no good being anything less than drastic with Huns; and be it on the Huns' own heads, for, by their loathsome actions, they have forfeited all rights to nationhood.
By all means take reprisals by death of 100,000 war criminals, if you can catch them, but do not lose sight of the fact that that will spur the remainder on to fresh efforts for revenge, if they have a country of their own from which to organise. We may catch a few of the guilty ones and put them to death, and I hope we do, but there is every chance, one way and another, that the majority of those incriminated will wriggle out somehow, some of them to other countries, while many will disguise their identity with forged official papers and birth certificates and become good Germans over night. They may not even need to resort to such devices, being confident that muddles, international disagreements or just the plain lapse of time, will look after them.
Unless we are careful, after this war there will be as much retribution as there was after the last war, about our hanging the Kaiser, and so on. The only certain retribution is, after the war, to make all able-bodied Germans sweat and toil for years to build up those parts of the world that they have demolished, and for there no longer to be a German nation. The latter retribution also happens to be the only likely means of preventing the Germans, from within their own country, and under their own Government, some time getting together again to plan and eventually carry out another agonising period for mankind.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: On a point of Order. As this is apparently a Debate on the subject of retribution, should we be in Order, in a subsequent Debate, in raising the question of retribution for anything other than the war crimes of Germans?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): There will not be time to raise anything else,. I am afraid.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Is not the hon. and gallant Member a sloppy sentimentalist, shrinking from the logic of his own argument, which should be to exterminate the whole German race?

Earl Winterton: The Russians will do that before the war is over.

Captain Cunningham-Reid: The alternative solution of what to do with the Germans is, of course, "Leave it to the Russians." In the meantime, I thought I had made it quite clear that I am all for exterminating as many war criminals as possible if you can catch them.
I want in conclusion to make this short explanation. As I said, it had been my original intention to raise to-day one or two matters concerning flying bombs. I was prevented, and I want to make it quite clear, as there seems to be some doubt about this, that I was not prevented by any occupant of that Chair. I believe the Government are making a grave mistake in stifling all open Debate on this subject that so intimately concerns the public. Excluding the public to this extent could well spread apprehension, and the public is made all the more anxious by hearing that there are only to be secret meetings of M.P.'s. This might lead people to surmise that as


public debate has been barred, gloomy prospects will be divulged at these secret meetings. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nonsense."] There are certain aspects of the flying bomb on which public discussion would in no way run counter to public security, and would be of intense interest to the public and might well allay many misgivings and perplexities.
As to my proposed remarks concerning flying bombs, I was careful to submit in advance to the Home Office a list of the questions I wanted to raise on the flying bomb, and I indicated that I would not mention any of those which the Home Office considered prejudicial to security. I think, if I may say so, I showed commendable prudence, but even though I left it to the Home Office to choose their own ground, they refused to allow me any questioning of any of their actions. In conclusion, I desire publicly to protest against this high-handed infringement of the rights of Members which in this case has deprived me of the opportunity of voicing even one point of view that is exercising the public mind concerning flying bombs, and of receiving just one answer that might have encouraged London's splendid spirit.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. George Hall): The hon. and gallant Member has left me a very few minutes in which to reply to a very wide Debate, about which we have had little notice—not that I complain very much about that, because I understand why the hon. and gallant Member changed from the subject which he had intended to deal with, to the variety of subjects which he has touched upon during his speech. I cannot commit the Government, in a few minutes, to divide up Germany, to hand portions over to Poland and portions to Denmark, and, indeed, to commit them to an agreement that all the male population of Germany should be transferred into other countries, whether those countries would take them or not.
All that I can say on this question of retribution, which I understood the hon. and gallant Member was going to raise, is that the Government, with their Allies, have determined their policy. In respect of criminals responsible for what has happened during the war, for atrocities the like of which the world has never seen,

in magnitude or in cruelty, the Government's policy is well known. A War Crimes Commission has been set up. That Commission will see that there will not be the same excuse for not taking action as there was at the end of the last war. Then, no action could be taken until the Peace Treaty was signed. By that time it was too late. A provision has been made that, as soon as the surrender terms are agreed upon, and the enemy surrenders, action will be taken against the criminals. That is as far as I can go. I cannot commit the Government to do one tithe of what the hon. and gallant Member suggested that they should do, and, indeed, the Government themselves could not do it, until they had consulted, not only with the Dominions, but with their Allies. I should like the hon. and gallant Member, in view of his reference to "the sloppy left-wing Government," which he says is liable to take office in this country——

Mr. Bull: No.

Mr. Hall: It is the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion. I should like him to read some of the publications which have been issued by the Labour Party. If he will take the trouble to read it, I will send him the Labour Party's programme.

Earl Winterton: Were these publications issued before the war? I hope that my right hon. Friend will forget what the Labour Party said before the war on the subject of Germany.

Mr. Hall: No, they have been issued during the war. I will send my right hon. Friend a copy as well, if he desires to have it.

Captain Cunningham-Reid: Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that I was particularly referring to the Labour Party? It might be a conglomeration of Common Wealth and all sorts.

Mr. Hall: There is only one party in this country which is likely to be the Government of this country: that is the Labour Party, and the Labour Party is rather selective as to whom it will take in.

Earl Winterton: With one minute to go, I should like to thank my right hon. Friend, on behalf, I am sure, of the whole House, for the speech he has


made. That speech exactly expresses the situation. He could not, as he said, commit the Government, and I do not think the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked him to do so, on this particular policy. But I was glad to hear that he did not commit the Government to the rejection of this proposal, and I myself believe that a great deal of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said would constitute the exact terms put forward by the Soviet Government, by Denmark, by Holland, and by Free France.

Mr. G. Strauss: In the half-minute that remains, may I express in a few words the strong disagreement, which I think is felt by nine-tenths of the Members of this House, and certainly by all Members of this party, with the extraordinary, nonsensical, and dangerous sentiments put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for St. Marylebone (Captain Cunningham-Reid)? The views put forward by the Soviet

Government have been in exactly the opposite direction. The Soviet Government have talked about the existence of a German State, which is exactly the opposite of what the hon. and gallant Member said. It strikes me as extraordinary that a member of the Conservative Party should speak in that way, of breaking up Germany——

Major Sir Derrick Gunston: He is not a member of the Conservative Party. Withdraw.

Mr. Strauss: An ex-member—a member during the pre-war period. He was a leading member of the Conservative Party, who were backing the Fascist leaders——

Hon. Members: Nonsense.

It being the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.